In those cases each man had his string of traps, and it was his
business to go to each trap every day, take the beaver out, skin
them, set the traps, carry the skins home and stretch them.
Sometimes we would trap as far as seven miles from camp, that
being the outside limit. After we had trapped here about three
weeks there came a light fall of snow which drove most of the game
to the valley, and we experienced no trouble in getting all the
meat we wanted close to camp, in fact we could often kill deer and
antelope from our cabin door.
The second morning after the snowfall, Uncle Kit, Johnnie West and
myself all started down the valley to took after our traps. We
went about a mile together, I left the other two, my traps being
the farthest away, some three miles down the valley. After leaving
the other two I struck out down the valley on a turkey trot, that
being my usual gait when alone. I had not gone far when I heard
two gun shots. Thinking that Uncle Kit and Johnnie had been
attacked by the Indians, I turned in the direction that I heard
the shooting, and ran back much faster than I had come, but had
not gone far when I saw ahead of me, up the narrow valley, a band
of about twenty bison coming direct for me. I thought by shooting
the leader it might check their speed and perhaps cause them to
change their course. So I brought my gun to my face and dropped
the leader, but it neither caused the others to halt or change
their course, and they were making a bee line for me, and there
was not a tree in reach large enough for me to climb nor a place
of any kind that I could hide.
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