Chapter I: Front Matter

The Boy Scouts in a Trapper's Camp

By Thornton W. Burgess

Author of "The Boy Scouts of Woodcraft Camp", "The Boy Scouts on Swift River", "The Boy Scouts on Lost Trail"

Illustrated by F. A. Anderson

The Penn Publishing Company Philadelphia

COPYRIGHT 1915 BY THE PENN PUBLISHING COMPANY

To
W. H. T.,
A lover of the open, and his three boys,
this book is affectionately dedicated

Introduction

To those who have read the preceding volumes in this series, "The Boy Scouts of Woodcraft Camp," "The Boy Scouts on Swift River," and "The Boy Scouts on Lost Trail," some of the characters in the present volume will be familiar. To me they are old friends in whose struggles and adventures I have taken the keenest personal interest.

In this, the fourth and concluding volume, I have endeavored to portray in some small measure the life of the trapper who in solitude and loneliness pits his skill against the cunning of the fur-bearers, and his courage and fortitude against the forces of Nature in her harshest and most relentless mood; to bring to my young readers a sense of the mystery of the great life eternal that broods over the wilderness to an even greater degree when its waters are fettered in ice, and its waste places wrapped in snow than when it rejoices in its summer verdure; to show that the standards a man or a boy sets for himself are as binding upon him in remote places where none may see as in the midst of his fellow men; and lastly to demonstrate what a powerful factor in the development of character and true manhood are the oath and law of the Boy Scouts of America when subscribed to in sincerity and conscientiously observed.

Man or boy is never so true to himself as when in intimate contact with nature. Adventures such as herein described may not fall to your lot, oh, boy reader, but be assured that whenever you heed the call of the Red Gods and hit the long trail you will find adventure of a degree awaiting you, and you will return stronger physically and mentally for having come in closer contact with the elemental forces which we term nature.

THE AUTHOR.

Contents

I. AN INTERRUPTED DREAM

II. PAT SEES WHITE MAGIC

III. THE BLUE TORTOISE PATROL

IV. "HELP!"

V. OFF FOR WOODCRAFT

VI. SNOW-SHOES AND FISH

VII. ON THE TRAIL

VIII. ALEC HINTS AT DARK THINGS

IX. SNOWBOUND

X. LIFE ON THE FUR TRAILS

XI. CHRISTMAS IN SMUGGLERS' HOLLOW

XII. A DEER YARD

XIII. POACHERS

XIV. THE SILVER FOX

XV. SPARRER'S TEMPTATION

XVI. THE CONFERENCE

XVII. THE CAMP OF THE POACHERS

XVIII. SMOKING OUT THE INDIAN

XIX. SPARRER SAVES THE SKIN

XX. THE BLACK FOX IS SOLD

ILLUSTRATIONS

HE SAW SOMETHING MOVE

HE JOTTED DOWN THE NUMBER

ONCE MORE THEY BUCKLED DOWN TO THE TASK

NOT TEN FEET AWAY WAS A BIG BUCK

FOR A FEW SECONDS HE STOOD MOTIONLESS

The Boy Scouts in a Trapper's Camp