own gifts relating to "human natur' and soft sawder" in making the sale.
A pilgrimage to Jim Simms has its reward in wandering tales of the life aboriginal—tales of trappers' wiles and rugged hardship, tales of woods "clogged with moose, moose without all reason," of black foxes that bite their snares and leave mocking tufts of fur in the trap, of autumn trips into the wilds with only a gun and a loaf of bread to provision the woodsman for a week. Jim Simms' wife "has learning," she can read and write. Jim went to school "one Sunday afternoon"; he has not delved in books. But he is master of the lore of "dead-falls" and peltry, and so conversant is he with the forest that he is summoned as arbiter to decide for disputants their own lumber limits. The trapping-ground near Square and Long Lakes has been his orb for nigh onto the Bible's span of life. Even yet he goes with his sons to set a hundred steel traps and four hundred wooden ones where the lucifee, the mink, the bear, the red fox and the skunk "got to trabbel to git their livin'." The traps are visited every five days until the snow falls. Christmas is the season for selling the fur. Otter brings the best price, wild cats that can be dyed—those that have their large paw shaped like the hind foot of a rabbit and wear a tippet 'round the neck—are fairly remunerative. "Good extra" minx fetch $7 to $10 a skin, red fox $3 to $8. Pelts of weasels that are
