t I was taking. My first night's
catch was two fox. Many of the readers of the H-T-T will remember of
seeing my picture with the two fox in the December, 1912, number. The
next two nights I got another fox and three skunk and wife's pet cat.
The cat business put it up to me and I was compelled to lift my traps
and take for other fields. Had I been able to traverse the hills and
woods of old Potter County, I could have done far better than I did
in the South.

My trapping fever had now reached such a high mark that I could no
longer stave it off and not being able to travel the hills and
streams of this section, hit my feet for Alabama, where I could do
the greater part of my work from a boat. After reaching Tryanna, I
made a trip up Indian Creek every day by boat to a fish trap dam,
which I was unable to get the boat over so was compelled to leave it
at the dam and hoof it up the creek to the end of the line. On the
way back down the creek each day I would gather up a boat load of
drift wood to last for the day. The water being at a very low stage,
it caused several rapids, which made it tight nipping to paddle the
boat over. I had occasion to stop paddling often as I was continually
making sets for mink, rats, coon and opossum, first on one side of
the stream and then on the other, so that I had abundance of time to
rest. But, comrades of the trap line, this kind of work is much
better for an old played-out trapper than pills.

While I found trapping conditions here in Alabama different than they
were a year ago, I nevertheless got a mink, rat, 'possum or coon
nearly every day, but two mink at a single round of traps was the
best that I did at any time. There was no otter or beaver in this
part of Alabama and but very few fox or skunk, and I found far more
trappers than there were a year ago. Many of the trappers were from
other states, and last season I did not see or hear of a colored man
trapping, but this fall I heard of the dark man and his works daily.
One of the worst and most foolish things that the trappers did was
their early trapping before furs were any where near in a prime
condition. This unwise work was indulged in by the white trappers as
well as the negroes.

I was unable to get out into the swamps or sloughs to any great
extent and it is in the swamps that the coon are found more
plentifully. The mink does not take to the swamps as readily as the
coon, nevertheless he is found in the swamps as wel