The Aegis & Intelligencer

THE LOST TRAPPER,
EVENTS OF A WINTER DAY IN THE
GREAT MAINE WOODS
Caught In a Snow Storm on the Mountain
While Going Over the Line of Traps.
Hunting For Blazed Trees-The Sweet
Music of the Rifle's Voice.

"There are times in the life of a Maine woods trapper," said Captain Barker, who is an old time Maine woods trapper himself, "when he'd rather catch sight of his old log camp in the wilderness than run up against a gold mine, for the camp at such times can do for him what all the gold mines on the face of the earth couldn't do -save his life. If you had ever tried trapping in the Maine woods in the depth of winter, you would know what I mean.

"For the sake of an illustration, just imagine yourself trapping there, say along in the month of December. There is a foot of snow on the ground. It doesn't require much imagination to see a foot of snow on the ground in the Maine woods in December. You might multiply it by three and get nearer the truth. You have two camps, and if they are 15 miles apart, it will be nothing unusual. Leading from one of these camps to the other you have two lines of traps, one to the right over the hardwood mountains, where there is good ground for the sable and fishercat, and the other to the left, up a brook and around a small pond, where the otter and beaver and mink work in their various ways, and then up another brook valley to the camp.

"Early in the morning you take your ax and rifle, your bag of bait and lunch and follow the mountain line of traps, while your partner takes the valley line, or vice versa, as the case may be, but the result will be the same. The expectation and calculation is that you are to meet each other at the camp before dark. You go up into the mountains. It begins to snow about 10 o'clock. Your partner has no difficulty in following the valley line, for the creek shows the way, and he will get to camp before dark, cut the wood for the night, get it in, build a fire and prepare for getting supper, expecting to hear you stamping in before long.

"But things go differently with you on the mountain line. There is more snow up there than in the valley. The traveling is hard. The traps need a good deal of setting over and fixing, for the wildcats have been busy along the line robbing you of a sable here and a fisher there, which otherwise would have been your well earned trophy. Then a fisher, fast in a trap, has dragged it away into the woods, and it takes you a good while to find it. A light wind drives the fast falling damp snow against the trunks of the trees, and it sticks there, so that in a couple of hours or so you can't see the blaze marks on them until you have brushed off the snow.

"By and by you find a blazed tree, and then look ahead and try to make up your mind which tree the next blaze is on. You pick out a tree that you think is the one and brush off the snow. No blaze there. Then you go on to another tree, perhaps off to the right, and brush again. No blaze there. Some distance ahead, off to the left, you see a tree. That must be a blazed tree surely, you think. You scrape the snow off that tree. No blaze there. And then you go on, hunting here and there for the next blazed tree, until at last you find it, only to have to repeat the proceeding perhaps before you locate the next one after that one on your course. All this takes much time and annihilates but little distance, and almost before you are aware of it darkness begins to fall around you. You have lost the line altogether now. You don't know whether it is to the right or to the left of you, but you do know that you are still a long way from camp. You have a compass, but as you don't know your course it is of no use to you.

"By this time you have begun to think that there is a good chance for your having to lie out on the mountain that night. You slip your hands into your pockets to make sure that your matchbox is all safe, and feel a little faint when you fail to find it. The likeliest explanation for its absence is that it slid out of your pocket while you were sleeping in your bunk last night. Never before have you realized the importance of always being sure that you have everything that can possibly be necessary on a tramp when you leave camp.

"Your situation now can't be described as a pleasant one. The damp snow through the day, together with the perspiration due to your hard working, has wet your clothing through and through. By and by it stops snowing. The wind has shifted around into the northwest and is blowing a gale The snow comes piling down from the trees upon you, and it hurts, for it is frozen. The fast scudding clouds look white and fleecy, and you occasionally see a cold looking star up through them. The mercury is liable to tumble down to 25 or 30 degrees below zero before morning. It is madness to think of lying out. You must get to camp or die

"You are struggling on through the snow and night, fully conscious of the peril of your situation, when suddenly you hear the distant report of a rifle. No one who has ever been there knows how sweet the report of a rifle can sound to his ears when plunging aimlessly about in the darkness, lost in wintry woods, and what a change it can make in his feelings on the instant. If you ever want to hear music that is sweeter than the swell of the grandest organ, let the report of a rifle come to your ears under circumstances such as those. At first you find yourself rushing in the direction from which the sound came. Then you stop suddenly. The awful thought comes over you that it was not a rifle shot you heard; that you only imagined it to be one; that your nerves are forsaking you; that you are losing your senses under the strain. Then there is what seems an age of torture, but it is really only a moment. Then you hear the report again. This time you no longer doubt your ears or your senses. It is your partner, uneasy at your tardiness, and fearing its cause signaling in hope that you will hear. You answer with a shot and stride on for camp, knowing that you are saved.

"By and by you come out in sight of the camp. Bright sparks are shooting up in showers out of the smoke hole. It is but a rough, rude log hut, but no illuminated palace of kings could awaken such joy within your breast as that same hut, with its blazing fire. The finest dinner that was ever spread could never taste as good as the meal of flapjacks, venison and black coffee that your partner has ready for you when you knock the snow off of you and go in. And no downy couch ever brought such rest to mortal man as that bed of spruce boughs on the cabin floor will by and by bring to you."

-New York Sun.