Partner a Necessity.
As I promised to give some reasons why a partner is necessary, and as
I have trapped many seasons both with and without a partner, I should
know something about the subject. A writer, some time ago, in
Hunter-Trader-Trapper said that it took some trappers fifty years to learn
what others learned in a week. Now, I fully agree with this writer,
for it only took me about three seconds to learn that a partner was
necessary, and it came about in this way.
I had several bear traps set near what is known as the Hogsback on
the old Jersey Turnpike Road in Pennsylvania. The traps were strung
along the ridge that divides the waters of the East Fork and the West
Fork, which are tributaries of the west branch of the Susquehanna
River and were setting from one and a half miles to four miles of the
wagon road, and about nine miles from any house.
The time in question was the last days of October or the first of
November, and the day a very warm one for that time of the year. I
had been walking very fast, in fact where the ground was favorable, I
would take a dog trot. I wished to make the rounds of the traps and
get out of the woods that day. When I came to where the second trap
had been set, I found it gone, clog and all. The place where the trap
was setting was in the head of a small ravine and near the edge of a
windfall, just on the lower side of the bait pen, and but a few feet
from it lay the partly decayed trunk of a large tree. I jumped on to
this tree to get a good look down into the windfall to see if bruin
was anywhere in sight. I had scarcely got on the log when I received
a reception which I think was something equal to that the Russian
Naval Fleet met with in the Corean Straits. I had jumped square into
a colony of large black hornets, and they did punish me terribly in
three minutes' time. My feet were swollen so that I was obliged to
remove my shoes and my entire body was spotted as a leopard with
great purple blotches and the internal fever which I had was most
terrible. I thought that every breath that I drew was my last. I was
two miles from the wagon road and nine or ten miles in the
wilderness. No one knew where I was, nor where the traps were set.
I thought no more of the bear. I only thought of reaching the wagon
road. I began one of the worst battles of my life, but after a
struggle of three hours I got to the road more dead than alive. But
here fortune favored me for soon after a man by the name of White
(one of the county commissioners who had been in the southern part of
the county on business) came along. He took me home where the doctor
soon got me on my feet again.
I told my oldest brother where he would find the trap, so he took a
man and team and went early the next morning and got the bear all
right. It was four or five days before I felt able again to go into
the woods and look at the traps, but when I did, I found a small
bear, (a cub) dead and the skin nearly worthless. This was 45 years
ago, but I am still working at the same old trade, in a small way.
At another time and previous to the time mentioned, I, with a
partner, was trapping on the headwaters of Pine Creek. We had been in
camp about a week, when one day we had been setting a line of traps
about three miles from camp. It was in November and the weather was
very disagreeable, yet we were hustling for we knew that the snow
would soon be on us, and then we wished to put in all the time we
could hunting deer.
On the day in question Orlando (that was my partner's name) long
before noon was complaining of a bad headache, and said that it
seemed as though every bone in his body ached. I tried to persuade
him to go to camp but he insisted on setting more traps. About three
o'clock in the afternoon he was obliged to give up, and said he would
sit down where he was and wait until I could go further up the stream
and set a couple more traps. I said no, we will go to camp, so we
started. We were about three miles from camp, but Orlando could only
go a few steps when he would be obliged to rest. He soon became so
weak that I could only get him along by partly carrying him. He was
several years younger than I, but he was somewhat heavier, so he was
rather more of a load than I could well manage.
I kept tugging away with him, and about 9 o'clock in the evening I
got him to camp, where I fixed him as comfortable as I could, then I
began a race of about eleven miles to Orlando's father's house. The
distance was about one-half of the way through the woods and it took
me until 12 o'clock to make it, but we soon had a team hitched to the
wagon and were on the way back to the camp where we arrived about 3
o'clock in the morning. We could only get within about one and a
fourth miles of the camp with a wagon, so we had to leave it there
and go on with only the horses. When we got to the camp we found
Orlando no better, so we got him on to one of the horses and by
steadying him the best we could, managed to work our way back home.
We arrived there about 8 o'clock in the morning and found a doctor
already waiting.
To make a long story short, it is sufficient to say that Pard had a
long run of typhoid fever, and if he had been in the woods alone he
would have surely died. I could relate other incidents where a pard
did come in very acceptable.
As it is a necessity to have a partner, it is also necessary to have
a good one, for the successful trapper has no idler's job on his
hands. You should always have a partner who is able to read and write
and should have a pencil and paper in your pocket, for it often
happens that you wish to leave a message at a certain place where
Pard and you expect to meet on the trap line. Then each one takes a
different line of traps, and circumstances has happened since you
left camp in the morning that it changes the entire program. It also
often happens that you get into camp at a different time than what
you expected and wish to go out again and take up another line of
traps, and you should try to keep one another informed as to about
what section you are working in.
Always endeavor to carry out the plans as near as possible the way
they were planned before leaving camp in the morning. Of all things,
do not accept of a man who is lazy or void of manly principles as a
partner, for sooner or later you will drop him. Then it will make no
difference how much you have done for him or how much you have
befriended him in times past, he will do you all the dirt he is
capable of doing.
If you want to know all about a man, go camping with him. Probably
you think you know him already, but if you have never camped on the
trail with him, you do not. It may be that he is your near neighbor
or he may have been a partner in business, but if you have not camped
with him, you have yet to learn him. It is not a hard job to believe
a man a good fellow when at home, but when you have camped with him
on the trail, then you will know him. When your companion wishes to
annoy any game, which you may find in your traps for the mere purpose
of hearing the animal moan with pain; will shoot birds and animals
just for the purpose of killing if you have a team with you, and your
companion will ride up the steep hills where other men would walk;
will neglect his beasts of burden in any way, this man you should
never choose as your camping or trapping partner. But when you find
one who will never wantonly torture a dumb animal and is kind to his
beasts of burden, always giving it all the advantages and kind
treatment possible, this man you needn't fear to accept as a trapping
partner for in this man you will find "a friend indeed when in need."