stage back home, that being as long as his
parents would allow him to stay. I went to the road to see him off.
When leaving he made many declarations that he would come back to
camp, although he never did.

The snow now began to lie on the ground as it fell and it began to
get cold at night. Coon did but little traveling and some way, after
Frank had been over to camp and stayed those three days, I seemed to
get homesick. I had not become expert enough to make a business of
deer hunting and marten and bear trapping, so I sprung the deadfalls
and took up the few steel traps that I had and began to take my furs
and other plunder to the road to take the stage home. After going
home I went to school for a few weeks.

I no longer remember how many coon, mink and other furs I caught, but
it was quite a bunch for furs were very plentiful in those days.

CHAPTER VI.

A Hunt on the Kinzua.

Comrades, as I have not been able to trap any for the past two
years--1905 and 1906--and as I have previously served for more than 50
years almost without cessation, along the trap line, I beg to be
admitted to your ranks as one of the "Hasbeens."

I will therefore tell of one of my trips on a hunting and trapping
expedition in the fall and winter of 1865-6, a party of two besides
myself. My two companions' names were Charles Manly and William
Howard. We started about the 15th of October for Coudersport with a
team of horses and wagon loaded with the greater part of our outfit
and went to Emporium, Cameron County, where we hit the Philadelphia
and Erie Railroad. The only railroad that touched Northwestern
Pennsylvania at that time. Here we took the railroad to Kane, a town
in Southwestern McKean County, where we stopped one day and made
purchases for three months' camping. We hired a good team here to
take our outfit about seven or eight miles on to Kinzua Creek.

Almost the entire distance was through the woods and over the rock.
There was no sign of a road only as we went ahead of the team and cut
a tree or log here and there. The outfit was lashed onto a bobsled,
and as we had bargained with the man to make the trip for a stated
price, he did not seem to care whether there was any road or not, so
that he got through as quickly as possible.

We reached the stream about noon. The man fed his team some oats,
swallowed a few mouthsful himself and was soon on his way back to
town, while we began laying plans for our camp. We sele