While
we were making the canoe three Indians came along, and after they had
eaten some of our good venison, they left us. These were the first we
had seen, and we began to be more cautious and keep everything well hid
away from camp and make them think we were as poor as they were, so they
might not be tempted to molest us.
We soon had the canoe done and loaded, and embarked on the brook down
stream. We found it rather difficult work, but the stream grew larger
and we got along very well. We came to one place where otter signs
seemed fresh, and stopped to set a trap for them. Our dog sat on the
bank and watched the operation, and when we started on we could not get
him to ride or follow. Soon we heard him cry and went back to find he
had the trap on his fore foot. To get it off we had to put a forked
stick over his neck and hold him down, he was so excited over his
mishap. When he was released he left at full speed and was never seen by
us after.
When we got well into the pine woods we camped and cached our traps and
provisions on an island, and made our camp further down the stream and
some little distance from the shore. We soon found this was very near a
logging camp, and as no one had been living there for a year, we moved
camp down there and occupied one of the empty cabins. We began to set
dead-fall traps in long lines in many different directions, blazing the
trees so we could find them if the snow came on. West of this about ten
miles, where we had killed some deer earlier, we made a A-shaped cabin
and made dead falls many miles around to catch fishes, foxes, mink and
raccoons.
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