Nelson Family Juvenilia
Box 1 Folder 45
The Three Hunters of Big Wolf Lake - n.d.

The Three Hunters of Big Wolf Lake

Ch. 1. Their Surroundings

It was a cold fall night and three boys sat round a blazing fire of maple logs which cracked and hissed in the open grate. These three boys were living a lone in a log cabin on the edge of Big Wolf lake in the heart of the wilderness of Hazleton. They had only come here two months before and had lived before that time near the boundary line of New Poplington on the United Division side, but about six months before our story begins they had been left orphans and as their father had been a hunter and trapper they concluded to be the same but instead of staying in their old home they had come out here into the wilderness to live by their skill in catching and shooting game. We will only call them by their first names, Horace the oldest who was about eighteen, Dick who was eighteen and James who was fourteen. Horace had his fathers rifle and a shot gun. Dick had a rifle and James a shot gun besides each of them having a knife they also had fifty traps together, during the two month they had been here they had had a plenty to eat and had made out to get a few fur animals in their traps it was now about the middle of October and snow would cover the ground in about a month and the boys were planning whether they should stay in their cabin here by the lake or go back in the woods and build them a house for the winter.

“I say we go back in to the woods to that thick forest of spruces, build us a cabin and stay there [page break] through the winter for there we should be sheltered from the winds that here sweep across the the lake so” said Horace.

“But then we could not come and look at our traps so easily and this place is quite a warm one with a good fire to keep us warm and we could see if anything was coming quicker,” replied Dick after considerable discussion the decided that they would build themselves a house in the woods back of the lake. Then they soon retrived to their bank which was a framework of poles spread over with bears skins and they had a bears skin blanket and one made of a couple of wolf skins these they had to spread over them to keep them warm. They were hardly in bed before they were asleep and all was still except when the howling wind and creaking trees except when broke by some distant wolf or owl. The morning broke bright and early for they had work to do today.

After eating a good breakfast of venison, James set out to look at the traps and the other two started for the site of their new house. The easiest way there was up a small brook that flowed in to the lake. This they came to and followed it up through a grove of large maples and beaches, after keeping on about half a mile they came to a large grove of spruces. The haunt of numberless rabbits and partridges, but the boys were not out on a hunt and though they started several, they did not fire at any. For their house they selected an open space some forty feet wide by fifty long around this they cut trees and after cutting them into the right length and shape they rolled them up and began on their house it was slow hard work. James had come just before they got ready to roll the logs up and had said that there wasn’t anything in any of the traps though several of them were sprung.

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