feature, but there were some ridges a little higher where
some small pines and beech grew. Now our camp was one place where there
was no large timber caused by the stream being dammed by the beaver.
Here were some of the real Russian Balsam trees, the most beautiful in
shape I had ever seen. They were very dark green, the boughs very thick,
and the tree in shape like an inverted top. Our lines of trips led for
miles in every direction marked by blazed trees. We made a trap of two
poles, and chips which we split from the trees. These were set in the
snow and covered with brush, We sometimes found a porcupine in the top
of a pine tree. The only signs of his presence were the chips he made in
gnawing the bark for food. They never came down to the ground as we saw.
They were about all the game that was good to eat. I would kill one,
skin it and drag the carcass after me all day as I set traps, cutting
off bits for bait, and cooking the rest for ourselves to eat. We tried
to eat the marten but it was pretty musky and it was only by putting on
plenty of salt and pepper that we managed to eat them. We were really
forced to do it if we remained here. We secured a good many of these
little fellows which have about the the best fur that is found in
America.

We were here about three weeks, and our provisions giving out and the
ice becoming tender in the swamp were two pretty strong reasons for our
getting out, so we shouldered our packs of fur and our guns and, getting
our course from a pocket-compass, we started out. As we pushed on we
came to some old windfalls that were troublesome to get through. The
dense timber seemed to be six feet deep, and we would sometimes climb
over and sometimes crawl under, the fallen trees were so thickly mixed
and tangled.

Mr. Buck got so completely tired that he threw away his traps. We
reached our starting place at O'Neil's saw-mill after many days of the
hardest work, and nearly starved, for we had seen no game on our trip.
We found our traps and furs all safe here and as this stream was one of
the tributaries of the Mississippi, we decided to make us a boat and
float down toward that noted stream. We secured four good boards and
built the boat in which we started down the river setting traps and
moving at our leisure. We found plenty of fine ducks, two bee trees, and
caught some cat-fish with a hook and line we got at the mill. We also
caught some otter, and, on a little branch of the river