first began running trap lines under an old
rocky mountain trapper. And here where I also learned to skin, bait
traps, make dead falls and cut and sew up my own clothes, make snow
shoes and paddle canoes, build camps and learn the various tricks of
indians and trappers, also how to doctor myself when sick and to avoid
the dangers of the wilderness. All too soon the mid-winter came and
there being no high line game to trap The trapper made up his mind to
move homeward. On the sixteenth day of January we began our march for a
town called South Boardman. We had to pack about thirty pounds apiece it
was thirty five miles to our destination. The first night we camped in
the snow the next evening a half hour after dark we reached town; here
we took a train for home and reached it about mid-night. My father
divided the fur taking my share for his pay. The balance of the winter I
hunted and trapped near home--and when spring came I hunted ginseng and
later picked huckle berries meanwhile I learned to speak the Chippewa
language.

I sold my gingseng and berries for more money than my father knew of and
bought a good gun and two revolvers together with considerable
amunition. This year I was in the Company of my Brother Lee and
to-gether we practiced with guns and revolvers till we thought we were
the best shots in the Co. Our rapid firing often aroused the settlers,
and they began to talk about us saying "we were growing up to be
outlaws." This greatly pleased us. Just befor I was nine years old my
folks got it into their heads to send me to school agin, thinking I
might be Henry Clay or Govener Mud or some other larkie--as usual I
raked up a row and the teacher had us expelled for carrying six shooters
in our dinner pails.

When we came home that day my father and mother held a long council over
us and finally called us in and father said--"I have tried to make
something out of you but you will never be anything but a
blockheads--and I might as well make good indians out of you as poor
ones." so he allowed us to use our guns smoke and chew rag-weed to our
hearts content. My next experience was with two of the best trappers
that ever bent steel in Michigan. Solitary Parson and Frank Johnson. We
were out three months and made good hauls, they gave me one fourth of
the fur, which was a neat sum. I then spent several weeks at target
practice, my daily stunt was splitting bullets on the bit of an ax forty
feet away. I soon became