The Morris County chronicle. [volume] (Morristown, N.J.) 1877-1915, 1909-07-06
A HARBOUR
WITH ssEPHRAIM. !"
By FRANKLIN welles caIkins.

O10AU<A00e 90 oNS
During the late winter and spring
Of 81" said my trapper friend, q
was out alone couple of hundred
miles west of Laramie.
i went up there in light snow
with my mule hitched to a travvy
that carried all my effects in a sixty
gallon caska big stout barrel which
had been freighted in at Fort Lara
mie.
The mule was a Government ami
~tmal, all right but for a spawn on one
.ore leg, which untitled him for the
heavy freight service l had bid him
in at traders auction. Moses, as |
called the beast, suited me better
than a pony, and for eight years he
and the big barrel served my purposes
in the way of travel
Moses was the most successful
forager | ever owned When he
couldn't dig up grass, he could thrive
on willows or almost any kind of
brush, and he wasn't scared of any
thing on earth, alive or dead.
That winter, which was open and
mild, | built light pole shack up on
the side hill for myself, and an open
shed near the creek bank for Moses.
Il found the trapping prime. The
water in all streams was very low,
there having been no rains the year
before, and when March came in the
beavers began migrating down
stream, hunting for more water.
THAT made easy trapping, for
every shallow was a runway where
you could set your traps between the
Ooulders just deep enough to catch a
beaver by the hind legs. took lot
Of pelts, and was getting on finely
when the silvertips crawled out of
their winter quarters and made trou-
Die for me-
For some days they took my beav-
er about as fast as l could catch them
Neither they nor any other four-foot
thieves ever trouble trapper when
he is taking his catch in water deep
enough to drown his beaver.
IT put in my time hunting bears
for three or four days, and killed four
within the range of my trapping
ground.
Zone morning, just at daylight,
y met a big fellow in the creek channel
within 200 yards of my shack.
'Twasn't light enough for good
shooting, but the rascal was picking
the bones of one of my beaver, and
took chance at forty yards, and
hred at him. The result was that
parked 'Ephraim's' jaw, and instantly
aad mad grizzly charging after me.
zone shot was all carried in those
days, and dropped my rife on the
rocks and ran for my shack. I was
good at sprinting, otherwise I should
never have beaten that lean old bear
in an uphill race. AS it was,
slammed and latched my flimsy split
pole door in Ephraim's face. Know
Ing that wouldn't stand up against a
single stroke of his paw, l dived for
my barrel, the only hiding place
had The big cask, with half head
In one end and whole one in the
other, served me both as provision
chest and table.
IT whirled it over, tumbled out the
contents, and with bowie knife in
my teeth, backed into it. / managed
to roll it so that the open end was
next to the wall, and in that refuge /
awaited Ephraini's movements.
1.-THE bear didn't smash in my
door. as feared he would, but pro-
seeded to climb up on my turkey pen.
The walls were laid up like worm
fence, little notched at the joining,
and the cracks we're stuffed with
moss. The roof, too, was covered
with light poles and with bark and
moss, weighted down by stones.
THE whole structure was not as
stout as a good rail pigpen, but there
wasn't tree big enough to climb on
that whole slope, just scattering
chaparral of small timber, and the
shack was my only refuge.
Sometimes a bear is afraid of
pen like that, especially If he has
ever been pinched in log trap, but
this one wasn't, as the books say, So
phisticated.
II heard the poles creak as he
mounted, and one of them, clawed
out of its joint, ratified an end on the
ground.
when he came to heave himself
up on the roof the poles flew apart
and the bear slumped in head first.
He was mad at finding himself Gagged,
and the way he broke loose was dam
aging.
In less than minute he knocked
the shack into smithereens. Then he
climbed out of a wreck of poles and
began shutting around the premises.
A half-dozen or more poles lay crisis
cross over my barrel, and had high
hope, for moment, that might es-
cape discovery.
But no; Ephraim either smelled
me or the bacon and sugar that had
turned loose, and back he came,
grunting and clawing into the wood
pile. When he raked ray barrel out
of the wreckage and poked his muz-
zle in at its opening I let him have
the knife Then things happened to
the barrel and me.
THE grizzly threw himself upon
the cask as uDon a Iivino fh{r9 -