Nelson Family Juvenilia
Box 1 Folder 46
The Trapper, Vol. 1, No. 1 - n.d.

The Trapper

No.1 Green & Little Publishers Vol.1

The Great Mountain Gold Mine

It was a day in late September, the trees had just put on their Autumn colors, and the air had the hazy look of Indian summer, all this my brother and I noticed but not with much thought, we had stopped to get our bearings on a low peak of one of the numerous mountain ranges of Hazleton, this one in particular was called Great Mountain not so much because of its size as because of its roughness and impenetrable character.

Many had been lost on this mountain and we though we did not call ourselves lost were a little puzzled in regard to direction. We lived at a distance of about five miles from the foot of this mountain and had hunted some along the sides at different times but this was the first time we had ever penertrated [sic] to any great depth its solitudes. Today we had resolved to [page break] go farther back among the peaks which formed this short isolated range, and now as the afternoon was slowly passing away we found ourselves on the top of a low peak with apparently an unbroken forest stretching in all directions from us covering peaks and valleys alike. Nine good miles probably lay between us and home, four of which was through an unknown forest with the possibility of getting again and only three hours more to do it in before sunset. We took our direction and set, due west by the sun, our route took us down through a deep valley. The slopes of which were thickly wooded with spruce, birch, and maple, and grown up with underbrush of moose bush it was a tangled and wild looking place. We hurried on down the gulch following a small stream

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