There were not many men living on government lands in that part of Wisconsin. Those who had taken claims and were living on them depended on their rifles for all of their fresh meat. Some of them made a practice of placing "set guns" pointing across deer trails. One end of a strong cord was first fastened to a tree, or to a stake driven into the ground some distance from the deer trail. The cord was then carried across the trail which was in the snow, for a distance of one hundred feet or less. Here, the gun was set firmly, pointing directly in line with the cord or string. The barrel of the gun was sighted at such an elevation as to send the bullet, when fired, across the deer trail at a height from the trail sufficient to penetrate the body of the deer. The string was then carried around some stationary object and fastened to the trigger of the gun, the hammer of which had been raised. The pressure of the deer's body or legs against the string would be pretty sure to discharge the gun, thus causing the innocent and unsuspecting deer to shoot itself. While running a compass line one day, we discovered, just ahead of us, a cord or string at right angles to our line of travel. I stopped immediately, while my companion, Tom Carney, followed the cord to its end which he found fastened to the trigger of a rifle. He carefully cut the cord, raised the rifle to his shoulder, and fired it into the air. He next broke the gun over the roots of a tree. Further examination showed that the cord was stretched across a deer trail which we would have reached in a minute more. With the return of winter the Sage-Patrick contract was about completed. CHAPTER VII. A New Contract--Obstacles. "To him who in the love of Nature holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language; for his gayer hours She has a voice of gladness, and a smile And eloquence of beauty, and she glides Into his darker musings, with a mild And healing sympathy, that steals away Their sharpness, ere he is aware." My life, up to the time of my contract with Mr. Patrick to go with him into the wilds of Wisconsin as an apprenticed land hunter and timber examiner, had been spent on the farm, in my father's shop, at school and college, and in teaching. The change of occupation and manner of living will therefore be seen to have been radical. In six months of contact with nature, I had been born into a new life, a life of initiative, of daring, and of hardships, insuring health and inspiring hope of financial success in a way honorable and helpful. I loved the forms of nature all about me, untouched by the hand of man. I therefore sought for and found an associate with capital sufficient to permit me to continue in the same line of work. The late Robert B. Langdon then became my partner, and this relationship was most pleasantly continued to the end of Mr. Langdon's life.