Kitabı oku: «With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga», sayfa 7

CHAPTER XI
AN UNEQUAL BATTLE

A masterful spirit had entered into Enoch Harding during the past few months. He was no longer a child; he thought and acted as a man in many things. Now, with this danger threatening them all, he did not shrink from the ordeal, and none might know his inmost feelings from the expression of his face. He did not speak to his mother, nor did she seek to advise him. Long before they had talked this emergency over, and it had been agreed that the homestead must and should be defended even to the point of firing on the Yorkers who might come to dispossess them. The legal authority claimed by Simon Halpen was not recognized in the Grants and did the Hardings put themselves in Halpen’s power by agreeing to let the New York authorities arbitrate the matter, they would lose all that they had toiled and suffered for during the past ten years.

The widow saw that the windows of the cabin were shuttered and that Bryce had both powder and bullets beside him in the loft. Then she went into her own chamber and falling upon her knees prayed as only a mother can whose children are in bodily and imminent danger. How far the Yorkers would dare go–to what lengths Halpen might force the fight for the ox-bow farm–it was impossible even to imagine. He was a cruel and unscrupulous man, but he had already had a taste of the temper of the Bennington settlers and perhaps the remembrance of the beech-sealing which had been dealt out to him two years and more before, would make him chary of coming to blows.

Soon the six Yorkers appeared around the corner of the log fence which enclosed the cattleyard. Four of them, including Halpen, were armed with guns. The surveyor and his assistant carried their tools only, and walked in the rear of the more warlike quartette. Their leader, his lean, black face clouded by a threatening scowl, strode across the home lot and approached the cabin door. His beady eyes glittered and when he was enraged his hooked nose seemed to glow a dull red beneath the dusky skin, like a half-heated iron.

Simon Halpen was much better dressed than the citizens of Bennington were apt to be, and he carried himself haughtily. His hair was done carefully and the queue tied with a silk ribbon. His rifle was silver-mounted and his powder-horn was partly of silver filagree work. In every way–dress, accoutrements and manner–he bore out the account the Hardings had received of him, that he was a wealthy and proud man. The three other armed men were fellows of the baser sort, hired at Albany for the purpose of driving the widow and her children from their home.

Enoch Harding thought this as he saw the party approach, and his heart beat faster while his cheeks were dyed with crimson. Should these men march up and deprive his mother and brothers and sisters of their home? Not as long as he held a gun and had powder and shot with which to load it! The fearful thought of shooting down one or more of these men in cold blood did not shock him now. The bitterness which filled his heart against Simon Halpen overbore any other emotion. He raised his rifle threateningly and cried aloud: “Halt there–halt I say! What d’ye want on our land?”

The three retainers of Halpen, as well as the surveyor and his ’prentice, halted instantly, but Simon strode on, his eyes blazing and his great nose growing ruddier as his rage increased. “Your land–your land, forsooth!” he exclaimed. “I’ll teach ye better than that, ye young viper!”

Instantly Enoch had his rifle to his shoulder and had drawn bead upon the Yorker. The muzzle of the weapon covered Halpen’s heart. The boy stood like a statue–there was no trembling to his young arms. “Back! If you come a yard nearer I will fire!” he cried. He did not recognize his own voice, but Halpen heard him plainly and was impressed with his earnestness. He stopped suddenly, half raising his own gun. “Don’t do that!” cried Enoch, instantly. “Keep your gun down. Why, I have but to press this trigger and you will drop where you are! Be warned.”

“Hi, captain,” growled one of his supporters, “the little varmint means it. Have a care.”

“You–you – ” Halpen only sputtered for a moment. He could not find words to properly express his rage. “I believe on my life, he would shoot me.”

“I certainly will, Master Simon Halpen, if you come nearer. You are quite near enough. You have come here for no good purpose. We own this land–my father paid for it and has improved it. He may be dead, but we will show you how we can defend the place from you Yorkers.”

“You crow loud, my young cock-o’-th’-walk!” exclaimed Simon Halpen, yet seeking to come no nearer the boy. “But you cannot hope to stand before his Majesty’s officers–though some of you vagabond Whigs have become bold of late. Know ye that I bear authority from the loyal governor of his Majesty’s Colony of New York, to turn you off this land, which is mine and has been mine for these six years.”

“And I have told you that you cannot come here and drive us off, for we shall fight ye!” declared Enoch, his anger rising. “And what be more, Master Halpen, though ye might succeed in driving us off, ye could not hold this land. It is too near Bennington, and ye know well what sort of men Bennington folk are, and what they would do to you.”

At this reminder of his former embarrassment, when caught by the neighbors and “viewed,” Simon Halpen flew into a towering rage. He shook his rifle in the air as he berated the fearless youth. “Have a care with that gun, Master Halpen,” said Enoch, “for it might go off by accident. And if such a thing should happen I would shoot you down–’deed and I would!”

This warning cooled the man’s ardor somewhat. For a full minute he stood silent eyeing Enoch from under his shaggy brows. “Would you dare flout me to my face?” he demanded.

“I dare keep my rights here, Master Halpen, as my father did before me,” said Enoch, his voice trembling for the first time. And at the mention of the dead and gone Jonas Harding more than Enoch were moved. Halpen’s manner changed; his face paled perceptibly; the fire died out of his eyes and his nose no longer glowed. He dropped his head and half turned as though to leave the spot.

But suddenly one of his retainers stepped forward and whispered in his ear. The whisper brought the leader to his old mind. His head came up and he flashed a look of bitter hatred at Enoch. He nodded to the man who had spoken and instantly the three armed retainers began to quietly spread out as though to surround the house. “I’ll parley no longer with you, my lad,” Halpen said, shortly. “This land is mine and you are naught but squatters on it. And as such you shall be put off, or my name is not Simon Halpen!”

Quick as thought Enoch darted backward to the house, for he had noted the action of the three men. “It is fighting you want, then, Master Halpen?” cried the boy, shrilly. “And you will get bullets instead of fair words if you press us–now I tell ye that! This is our home and we shall fight for it.”

“Stop the young rascal!” roared Halpen, raising his gun now in earnest, when he saw that Enoch no longer had him “covered.” But the boy dodged into the house and slammed to the heavy door. As he did so a bullet buried itself in the door frame. Halpen had actually fired.

The widow herself dropped the bars into place, for she had come out of her chamber and heard the conversation between her son and the Yorker. Now Enoch ran to one of the loopholes from which he could observe the movements of the man who had shot at him in so cowardly a manner. He saw that the surveyor, who had thus far kept in the background, was expostulating with the angry man. He could not hear what they said, but it was evident that the surveyor was a man of some conscience and could not see such murderous actions without striving to put Halpen in better mind. But the latter shook him off in rage and loaded his gun again. The house was now surrounded by the four armed men and the three understrappers were only waiting Halpen’s command to fire.

“Shall I shoot him? shall I shoot him?” cried Bryce, from the loft.

“Hold your fire!” commanded Enoch. “You may have blood on your hands yet, if you be not careful.”

“But he fired at you.”

“And a poor job he made of it. We will not fire unless we are forced to.”

His mother said never a word. She went into her chamber again and with the girls and little Harry crouched upon the bed. But she glanced frequently from the loophole to observe the movements of the Yorker upon that side of the clearing.

By and by Halpen raised his voice and addressed the besieged. “Open the door and come out, or we will batter it down. And it will go hard with you then, I warrant! If you give up the place peaceably you may cart away your household stuff and the cattle and hogs. I’ll not be too hard on you.”

“If you come near this door I will send a bullet through your black heart!” was Enoch’s reply, poking the muzzle of his rifle through the loophole beside which he stood.

The widow came running from the chamber. “Enoch! Enoch!” she cried, in horror. “Would you kill him?”

“He killed my father!” cried the boy, before he thought what explanation of his secret suspicions that remark might necessitate.

“The child is mad!” she murmured, after staring at him a full minute. “You do not know what you say, Enoch. Master Halpen had naught to do with your poor father’s death.”

But Enoch had not to reply. A cry came from Bryce in the loft. “Look at that! Look at that!” he shouted, with excitement. “I just will shoot him!”

And then his old musket spoke. There was a yell from without. Enoch thought Simon Halpen himself had been shot, but the Yorker only ran around the end of the cabin to where one of his men stood howling like a wolf, and holding on to his swinging arm.

“I’ve broke his arm!” declared Bryce, proudly, coming to the head of the ladder. “He was flinging blazing clods on the roof.”

“What shall we do?” gasped the mother. “My boys will be murderers.”

“I’ll kill them all before they’ll harm you, mother,” declared young Bryce, very proud indeed that he had hit the mark, but secretly delighted as well that he had done the villainous Yorker no serious damage.

But the moment after, he shrieked aloud and came again to the top of the ladder. His face was blanched. “Oh, oh! they’ve done it–they’ve done it!” he cried. “The roof is afire. Don’t you smell it?”

Enoch could not believe that this horror was true until he had run up to the loft. The red flames were already showing at the edge of the house wall, and the crackling without told him that the bark and binders of the roof were burning fiercely. “Tear it off!” he shouted, and dropping his rifle he seized a length of sawed scantling which his father had brought from the mill, and began to break up the burning roof and cast it off. But as it fell to the ground against the house, soon the logs outside were afire. The dwelling was indeed imperiled.

“Come out! come out!” shouted Simon Halpen’s voice. “The hut will burn to the ground an’ ye’ll burn with it. Ye’ll go to Albany jail for this, every last one of ye!”

“Let me shoot him, mother!” cried Bryce, doubly excited now. “He’ll never take you to jail.”

“Come down from the loft, Bryce,” the widow commanded, calmly. “Nothing can save the cabin now.”

The children were crying with fear. The red flames began to lick the edges of the shutters and the door frame was afire. If they escaped they must pass through a wall of flame. The men outside, frightened by the result of their awful act, were shouting orders and berating each other madly. Yet none dared come too near, for they feared the guns of the defenders of the homestead. Enoch for the moment completely lost his head and stood as one daft.

But his mother was not so. Swiftly did she sweep aside the ashes on the hearth. Then of her own exertions she lifted on its edge the flat stone which covered the underground apartment. There was the ladder the boys had made leading down into the cool depths. “Down with you–all!” she commanded, seizing little Harry first and thrusting his feet upon the ladder.

“Oh, we’ll smother down there, mother!” cried Kate.

“Nonsense!” exclaimed the widow, yet with shaking voice. “Do you think mother would tell you to do anything that would hurt you?”

But though she encouraged them to descend, in her own mind she was simply choosing the lesser of two terrible evils. The girls and Harry descended quickly; but she had to fairly force Bryce down. He wanted to stay and fight, and he clung to the old musket desperately. Although the tears were running down his face, he was made of the stuff which holds the soldier, though frightened, to his post.

“Go down yourself, mother,” Enoch said, recovering his presence of mind and speaking calmly now. “I will follow you and drop the stone into place. But first I want to look out – ”

He ran to the loophole, through which the smoke was now pouring. But after a moment there was a break in the cloud and he saw the group of frightened Yorkers plainly. They stood not many rods away and poking his rifle through the hole, he aimed at the villainous Halpen and, pulling the trigger, ran back to the hearth before the echo of the shot died away. Down the ladder he darted, dropping the heavy hearthstone into place, and leaving the cabin which for so many years had been their home, to be consumed above their heads. But his heart sank when he found how closely the six packed the tiny room and realized how little air reached them down here in the earth.

CHAPTER XII
BACKWOODS JUSTICE

At daybreak on this very morning when the Yorkers attacked the Harding place, ’Siah Bolderwood returning from the direction of Old Ti, suddenly came upon a little glade on the bank of the Walloomscoik Creek. With the instinct long gained by his life as hunter and woodsman, he never crossed an open space in the forest without examining it well. In this glade he saw, at first glance, the signs of recent occupancy. The smouldering ashes of a campfire and the marks on the creek bank told him that a canoe party had camped there during the night and that they had been under way but shortly. Making sure that they were now out of sight he more closely examined the spot. The party numbered at least half a dozen, and there had been two canoes. He had come up the creek bank himself; therefore, not having seen the strangers, they had gone on ahead of him. Five miles or so up the stream lay the ox-bow at which his old friend Jonas Harding settled when he came into the Disputed Grounds, and where the widow and her brood now lived. After examining the camp he quickened his step toward the Harding place.

A mile further on, however, he heard the stroke of paddles and the sound of men’s voices. He would have gone to the fringed river bank and peered out upon the stream had not a figure suddenly risen before him as though from the ground itself and barred his way. “How d’ye, Crow Wing!” he exclaimed, yet showing no surprise at the Indian youth’s appearance. The latter bore a brace of rabbits on his gun and Bolderwood guessed that he belonged to the canoe party and had left them to get this game for their dinner.

“Umph!” returned the Indian and looked at him stolidly.

“Your people?” asked the ranger, with a gesture toward the river.

“Umph!” was the reply. It might have meant yes or no. Crow Wing seemed undecided. “Why you no at Hardings?” he demanded finally.

“I’m bound that a-way now,” said the white man.

“Hunting?” grunted Crow Wing.

“Been up to Old Ti. Bought some land up there.”

Crow Wing seemed about to pass on. But over his shoulder he said: “You go to Hardings’ farm. They want you–mebbe.”

“What for?”

The Indian shrugged his shoulders and walked on. But Bolderwood strode after him. “What’s going on?” he asked, anxiously. “Who’s that out yonder?” nodding again toward the creek.

“Umph! Men hire Crow Wing to paddle canoe. They go to Hardings’.”

“Yorkers!” exclaimed Bolderwood.

But the Indian youth said no more and quickly disappeared in the bushes which overhung the creek. The ranger hesitated a moment, appeared to think of following him, and then turned abruptly and plunged into the forest on a course diagonal from the river. Therefore, when Nuck and Bryce were fighting the bears in the swamp he did not hear their guns, being by that time some miles away and striding rapidly toward Arlington. He had suspected the truth and instead of wasting time observing the party of which Crow Wing was a member, he had it in his mind to rouse the neighbors to go to the aid of the widow and her children. After the affair at Otter Creek, which he was sorry indeed to have missed, Bolderwood had expected something like the present raid. He, like the Hardings, believed that Simon Halpen would find the time ripe for the carrying out of his nefarious designs.

It was the season of the year when the farm work having been completed, the pioneers felt free to go about more, and hunting was popular. Many men were off with their rifles; but Bolderwood picked up some half dozen determined fellows and hastened back to the Harding place. While yet some distance away they heard a rifle shot and so disturbed was the ranger by this, that he started on the run for the ox-bow farm, and was far ahead of his friends when he broke cover at the edge of the forest and beheld the cabin.

His horror and despair when he saw the house wrapped in flames and the Yorkers running across the fields toward the river, knew no bounds. Yet even then he did not suppose that the widow and her family were within the burning dwelling. He presumed they must be hiding in the outbuildings and he ran on after the fleeing Yorkers, thinking only to take vengeance upon them for their wanton cruelty in burning down the poor woman’s house at the beginning of winter.

One man kept turning back to look at the blazing structure which was now more than half consumed; and this fellow the ranger quickly overtook. It was the surveyor and he was wringing his hands and weeping as he ran. Bolderwood dashed past him without a word, seeing plainly that he was not armed and was sore frightened. “I’ll attend to your case later,” the ranger muttered, and spurred on after the rest of the party. But they were too quick for him, and having reached the bank of the creek leaped into their canoes and the Indians pushed off. The fear of what they had done pressed them hard and they had run like madmen from their single pursuer. Now at an order from Halpen the Indians stolidly paddled down the river again and were quickly out of sight around the nearest bend in the stream.

Bolderwood went back and found the surveyor prone upon the ground and weeping like a woman. “Get up, you great ca’f!” cried the ranger. “Nobody’ll kill you for your part in this matter though you desarve little mercy… Was that Simon Halpen?”

“It was indeed–the demon!” gasped the fellow, dragged unceremoniously to his feet by the borderer.

“If he ever comes into this colony again I doubt but he’ll be hung as high as Haman,” Bolderwood declared. “And you were the surveyor, eh? One of Duane & Kempe’s men? Well, sir, your back will be well tickled, or my name’s not ’Siah Bolderwood! But bear up, man–’tis no killing punishment.”

“What, sir?” cried the fellow. “Do you think I weep because of your promised punishment? I fear you not–I am a leal subject of the King and peaceful. You cannot touch me. But I weep because of the work that dastard has done this day.”

“What do you mean?” cried Bolderwood, fiercely. “Where is the woman and her bairns?”

The surveyor pointed a shaking finger at the cabin, the smoking walls of which were now all that were standing. “They are there. Wait! let me tell you. I had nothing to do with the dreadful work. Nor, indeed, did Simon Halpen mean to destroy the house and the poor woman and children. They meant to burn the roof off to scare them out, and one man threw burning clods on it. But those inside tore off the flaming roof and it fell all around the cabin and set the walls afire. They dared not run out through that wall of flame and smothered to death they were–God pity them!” and he began to weep aloud again.

Bolderwood was speechless–well-nigh overcome, indeed, with the horror of this. He saw his friends appear from the wood on the other side of the house and he walked toward them like one in a dream. But still he clung to the surveyor’s arm and forced him to approach the cabin. The roof had, of course, been completely consumed, and the outside of the walls was blackened and still blazed fiercely at the corners. The window shutters and door were burned away and the interior of the place was badly demolished.

“Where’s the widder and the boys?” shouted one of the newcomers to Bolderwood. The old ranger did not answer, but his hand tightened upon the surveyor’s arm. Suddenly the latter shrieked and would have fallen to the ground had not the grasp upheld him. In the door of the burning cabin stood the figure of Enoch Harding, his face covered with smut and his clothing half burned off his back. For a moment the surveyor believed the dead had risen and he covered his face with his hands to shut out the sight of the boy.

“Are ye all alive, lad?” shouted Bolderwood, dropping the surveyor and running forward.

“We’re all right, but well-nigh smothered,” returned Enoch, hoarsely. “Bring–bring some water!”

He staggered out of the cabin and fell upon the ground. In a moment the surprised neighbors were running with buckets and pans from the well, for Mistress Harding’s milk vessels had been left to dry outside the springhouse. Bolderwood took it upon himself to revive the half-strangled Enoch, while the others dashed water over the smouldering interior of the cabin, putting out the fire on the floor which was burning briskly, and finally being able to draw the widow and the smaller children from the secret room under the hearth and carry them to the outer air. Here they quickly revived and Mistress Harding with the girls and little Harry took shelter in one of the hovels.

The destruction of the cabin was practically complete. There was not a log that was not charred, and the interior furnishings of the house were ruined. The kind-hearted neighbors saved the chests of bedclothing and the family’s best garments, for the flames had not gotten at them. But everything was sadly smoked. And the house would have to be torn down and rebuilt with new timber throughout. It was a sad spectacle indeed for Enoch and Bryce to look upon. “I wish I had shot them all!” cried the latter in a rage. But Enoch said nothing. He would not whisper how his anger had made him aim to kill Simon Halpen. Now, in cool blood, he was glad that the bullet had not sped true.

But the condition of the house filled him with despair. Winter was at hand and it would be next to impossible to build a good house before spring, although the timbers could be drawn and squared while the snow was on the ground. What would they do for a shelter until then? “We’ll make yonder hovel that you boys play in, all tight and warm for the winter, Nuck,” Bolderwood observed, seeing the tears running down the boy’s cheeks. “Don’t cry about it. And we’ll have up a better house than this in the spring, lad. The neighbors will all help ye.”

Meanwhile, however, Bolderwood had kept his eye upon the surveyor. The latter, seeing that the family had been so miraculously saved from the fire, sought to get away while the men were saving those goods which were unconsumed. But Bolderwood was after him with mighty strides and dragged him back, a prisoner. “Nay, friend, you’ll be needed here as a witness,” he said, grimly. “We don’t allow such gentry as you in the Hampshire Grants without presenting you with a token of our respect and consideration. Ha!” he added, suddenly, “whom have we here?”

A horseman rode quickly out of the wood and approached the burned cabin. Before he pulled in his steed the men welcomed him vociferously, for it was Captain Baker. “Look at this, ’Member!” cried Bolderwood, dragging the trembling surveyor forward. “What a sight this is to blister the eyes of decent men! A poor widder’s house burned about her ears and only by the mercy of God were she and her youngsters saved.”

“The villains!” roared Baker. “And is that one of them?”

“He was with the party. But I truly believe that he had little to do with this dastardly work. He’s only a poor surveyor body.”

“We’ll find shelter with some neighbor for Mistress Harding and the little ones,” said Baker, “and then attend to his case without delay.”

But the widow was not minded to leave her homestead. It was not yet very cold and the hovel in which the children had had their frolic a fortnight before was easily made comfortable for the family. She set about this at once while Captain Baker and the neighbors sat in judgment upon the trembling surveyor. These impromptu courts held by the Green Mountain Boys when they happened to capture a Yorker guilty of meddling with the settlers, were in the nature of a court martial. Sometimes the sentences imposed were doubtless unjust, for the judges and juries were naturally bitter against the prisoners; but the punishment seldom went beyond a sound whipping, and in this case the surveyor, still sputtering and objecting to the illegal procedure, was sentenced to two score lashes, save one, and Enoch and Bryce selected the blue beech wands with which the sentence was to be carried out.

The surveyor was taken behind the log barn, his coat and shirt stripped from his back, and Bolderwood and one of the other neighbors fulfilled the order of Captain Baker as judge of the military court. Bolderwood, remembering the tears the prisoner had shed when he thought the family burned alive, could not be too hard upon him, and although the woodsman made every appearance of striking tremendous blows, he scarce raised a welt upon the man’s back. But when the other executioner laid on for the last nineteen strokes, the surveyor roared with pain and without doubt the lesson was one which did him good. It would be many a day before he ventured to survey the lands east of the Twenty-Mile Line–at least, not until his back stopped smarting. Finally he was given his clothing, and part of the band marched him across country to the New York border and turned him loose.

The attack of Simon Halpen upon the Hardings had practically failed. Yet the loss of their home was a sore blow. In a couple of days, with the help of Bolderwood, the old hovel was made very habitable. But it was small and so many of their possessions had been burned that even Bryce cried about it. Nevertheless their supply of food was all right, and the cattle had not been injured. Also, with Bolderwood’s assistance, the three bears which the boys had so happily killed, were brought home, the hams smoked, some of the meat salted, and the pelts stretched and dried for winter bed coverings. By the time the snow lay deep upon the earth the Hardings were once more comfortable.

The boys did very little trapping and hunting that winter of ’72-’73 for they could not attend to traps set very far from the ox-bow, and the Walloomscoik country was becoming scarce of game. ’Siah Bolderwood did not go back to Old Ti, either, but contented himself with making short hunting trips around the lower part of the lake, for he spent all the time he could spare in helping the widow and her boys to get the timber ready for their new abode. Enoch and Bryce were determined that this new structure should be much better than the log cabin which their father had erected ten years before, and every timber dragged to the site by the slow moving oxen was squared with the broad ax and carefully fitted so as to “lock” at the corners. Some planks were sawed at the mill and sledded to the ox-bow on the ice, too, and when the plaintive call of the muckawis–the Indian name for the “whip-poor-will,”–ushered in the spring, a noble company of Green Mountain Boys gathered to build the widow’s house again.

Although the new house was put up and made habitable in about ten days, it took some time to fit window-frames, build two partitions, for there were to be two sleeping chambers on the ground floor in this house, which was larger than the old structure, and lay the floor of the loft, build bunks to sleep in, make a new meal chest and dresser, and construct other articles of furniture which were needed to replace the stuff burned in the fire. Enoch had a mechanical turn of mind and Bryce made an able assistant. Between them they turned out a new table, several chairs with hide backs and seats, and even essayed a “rocker” for their mother which, although rudely built and with its rockers not exactly even, was declared by Mrs. Harding to be a marvel of workmanship.

All these things had to be done besides the regular work of the farm during the spring and summer, and the studies of the older boys were rather neglected that year, greatly to the delight of Bryce. Indeed, several of their mother’s precious books had been destroyed by the flames, and had it not been for the sorrow he knew she felt at their loss, Bryce would have openly expressed his satisfaction. He was born for the woods and fields, and although he made no objection to farmwork, it was plain that his father’s roving disposition had entered strongly into the make-up of the lad.

He still felt injured–indeed, the feeling grew with his own growth–because he was not allowed to join the military companies; but Mistress Harding had finally promised that if he could trap enough game the next winter to pay for a new gun–a rifle instead of the old musket which had once been Nuck’s and which their father had brought with him on his return from the French wars–he should be allowed to attend the Bennington drills. That was putting the privilege a year ahead, but Bryce was partially contented with it.

Lot Breckenridge had finally been allowed to join the Green Mountain Boys and so Enoch had somebody in his company near his own age. On several occasions there were frolics in the neighborhood to which the young people foregathered, and before the new house was built Lot and Enoch had gone on a very brief hunting trio. But as fall again approached the two friends, Lot and Enoch, planned to go trapping on the upper waters of the Otter and its branches as soon as harvest and hog-killing should be over and the winter really set in. Lot had several steel traps which had belonged to his father, and Enoch was likewise supplied. Both had canoes, but they agreed to use Enoch’s only, as one was all they cared to “pack” over the portage to the upper Otter.