All being ready, Uncle Kit, Johnnie West and myself pulled out for South Park.  We passed over a high range of mountains, struck the Park on the east side, and a more beautiful sight I never saw than the region was at that time.  Coming in from the direction mentioned, one could overlook the entire park, which was almost surrounded by snow-capped mountains, and the valley, several miles below, which was about eighty miles long and from ten to twenty miles wide, was as green as a wheatfield in June.  When we were near the valley we could see elk in bands of a hundred or more, with small herds of bison scattered here and there in the valley, and antelope by the hundred.

I had often heard of a hunter’s paradise, and when I got sight of this lovely valley, with its thousands of wild animals of almost every description known to the continent, I made up my mind that if there ever was such a place as a hunter’s paradise, I had surely found it.  The high mountains with scattering pine trees on the sides; the snowy white peaks above the timber line, and the many little mountain streams and rills that paid tribute to the main stream that coursed this beautiful valley, all combined to form a scene of magnificent grandeur.  The quaking-asp, balm and various other kinds of small timber that grew along the streams all helped to add to the beauty of the scene.

We crossed over to the west side to a cove that ran back some twelve miles from the main valley; here, we decided, was the best place to establish our winter quarters.  Every little mountain stream in the valley was alive with beaver, and Uncle Kit thought it so late that we would not be bothered by the Indians that fall, but, that we would have to get out early the following spring.  Feeling perfectly safe, we built our cabin this winter entirely on top of the ground, consequently we were not long in getting our winter quarters completed and were soon ready to start in trapping.  We had excellent success this winter; very little snow to contend with, making it much better getting around than usual and an easier task to look after strings of traps.

In those cases each man had his string of traps, and it was his business to go to each trap every day, take the beaver out, skin them, set the traps, carry the skins home and stretch them.  Sometimes we would trap as far as seven miles from camp, that being the outside limit.  After we had trapped here about three weeks there came a light fall of snow which drove most of the game to the valley, and we experienced no trouble in getting all the meat we wanted close to camp, in fact we could often kill deer and antelope from our cabin door.