were gone from the roof and
the door which was made of split shakes.

First, we split out shakes and repaired the roof and the door. We
then split chinking block out of a basswood tree to renew the
chinkings that had been gnawed and eaten up by the porcupines. After
the chinking was all replaced and fastened in place by making wedges
and driving them into the logs, one at each end of each chinking
block, we gathered moss from old logs and calked every crack,
pressing the moss into the cracks with a wedge-shape stick made for
the purpose. The calking was all done from the inside.

After the chinking and calking was done, we dug into a clay bank and
got clay, which we mixed with ashes taken from the fire then added
sufficient water to make a rather stiff mortar. We filled the spaces
between the logs, going over every crack on the outside of the shack.

Now and again Frank would notice a mink or coon track along the
creek, while he was gathering moss from the old logs. These tracks
would drive Frank nearly wild, and he would double his energy so as
to get the shack finished so we could hit the trap line.

After we got the shack in good shape, we went to work getting up a
good supply of wood, sufficient to last through the season. We had an
open fireplace, so we cut the wood about three feet long. The wood
was now up near the camp door, ranked up in good snug piles. We then
cut crotched stakes and drove them in the ground on each side of the
ranks, and laid poles in, then placed cross poles on and covered with
hemlock boughs.

Frank was so anxious to get to work on the trap line, that he at
first objected to putting in so much time in getting up the wood,
saying that we could get the wood at odd times. But when told that
there are no odd times on the trap line, he then worked the harder to
get the supply of wood, including a good supply of dry pine for
kindling fires, which we got by cutting a dry pine stub.

The camp now being in good shape, we hit the trap line and began
building deadfalls for marten. We went onto the ridges into the thick
heavy timber, where the marten were most likely to be found. We would
select a low hemlock to build the deadfalls under, so the trap would
be protected from heavy falls of snow, as much as possible. Some of
the traps we would drive crotched stakes and lay poles in them and
then cover with hemlock boughs to keep the snow off.

After we had several lines of marten traps built, we