To get back to my story, Charley and I did fairly well in catching mink and marten, but the bear had either migrated or gone into winter quarters. The coon had also gone into winter quarters. The snow was getting quite deep as it was now past the middle of November, and it now proved to be my luck to be left alone in camp. One night when we were coming to camp, we had to cross a stream on a small tree which had fallen across the creek. There were several inches of snow on the log and Charley was carrying a small deer on his back. I was behind him carrying the guns. Charley worked his way carefully across the log but just as he was about to step off the log on the opposite bank he slipped and fell striking his left leg across the log, breaking the bone just above the ankle joint. Fortunately we were only a short distance from camp so that Charley hobbled to camp, using his gun for a crutch. When we got in camp it did not take long to see that the bone was broken. I fixed wood, water and food as convenient as possible for Charley and took a lantern, a lunch in my pocket and started for Alpena, reaching there shortly after daylight the next morning. Engaging a team without any delay we started back to camp. Reaching camp about three o'clock in the afternoon, we found Charley quite comfortable and feeling quite chipper under the circumstances. While the team was eating we fixed both blankets on the straw and a mattress which we had brought for the purpose from town, and fixed things as comfortable as we could. We were soon on our way back to town, which we reached about midnight. The next morning the doctor set the broken limb with but little difficulty. After staying two or three days and making arrangements with a young man to come to camp every Saturday and bring mail and word from Charley, I returned to camp, where I found things all right. While out to town I bought a pair of snow shoes. I had never used them, and for the first few days it was who and who to know which would be on top, myself or the snow shoes. I finally mastered them and found them a great help in getting about in the deep snow. It kept me pretty busy attending to the traps. One night after Charley had been gone about three weeks, on nearing camp, I saw a big smoke coming out of the chimney. I first thought the cabin was on fire, but I soon saw that that was not the case, and knew some one had started a fire. When I got there I saw some one had been there with a team. When I rapped on the door Charley called out, "Come in, I am running this camp now." Well, I tell you I was pleased to hear that voice call out, "Come in." It was some time before we thought it best for Charley to go out very much, but he could keep camp and I had company. We stayed in camp until the middle of May, thinking that we would have a big catch of bear in the spring, but were disappointed for we only caught three; but we caught quite a lot of coon. We did not trap any for muskrat.