t close this short letter without stating that our friend
and partner, Mr. A. L. Lawrence, who was a native of Randolph County,
N. C, was an expert trapper, and especially on mink. Mr. Lawrence was
a good cook as well as a good trapper. Mr. Lawrence was hard to beat
on baking opossum and bread making, but when it came to boiling water
without burning it, your humble servant could hold him a close
second.

Say boys, I forgot to say that you will find Billy the Sneakum just
as numerous in Dixie as he is in Pennsylvania.

* * *

Comrades of the trap line, I am not in condition to write much at
this time owing to my health, but, later I hope to be able to give a
fuller account of my trapping experiences of 1912 in Alabama,
northern Georgia, northwestern North Carolina and southeastern
Tennessee. And Comrades, right here I wish to say that through the
above mentioned sections of the south, I found nearly every trapper a
reader and lover of the _Hunter-Trader-Trapper,_ and many of these
readers seemed like old neighbors to the writer, when he met them.

Well boys, during all of last year, my health was such that I never
again expected to hit the trap line, but as the frost began to turn
the leaves of the timber on the hillsides, the trap fever became so
high that I was compelled to take a half dozen traps and take to the
brush. The first night I got two foxes, the second night I got
another fox, three skunk and wife's pet cat. The catching of Timy
(the cat) caused wife to put up such a fight, that I was compelled to
pull the traps, pack my outfit and start for Alabama.

Now boys, I am not going to tell you entirely of my own experience,
but of the experiences of other trappers and hunters as told me by
them. One trapper told of the killing of a bear in the thick cane
brakes in the swamps of the Mississippi. It was against the game laws
of Mississippi to kill bear at that time of the year, and as these
hunters could not resist the taking of this bear, they put up a job
on the bear. There were four of the hunters going through the thick
cane brake, when they saw the bear coming toward them. The head man
pulled his hunting knife, and told the other hunters to lie down, he
dropping to his knees, knife in hand. When the bear was close up to
him he sprang up and shouted "boo". The bear raised up on its hind
feet and the hunter seized the bear and plunged the knife into it.
The other hunters sprang to their feet, gun in hand a