He farmed, and
worked in the shop--but in his heart, always, was the call of the
forests that surrounded him, and it was his one great weakness. A blast
from his horn would bring his hounds yelping around him; and often,
unexpectedly, he would go on a hunt that at times stretched into weeks
of absence.
His hounds were the master pack of those hills. On his hunts when he
built his campfire at night he gathered the dogs around him and singled
out for especial favors those whose achievements had merited distinction
during the day. Following a custom that in those days prevailed among
owners of hunting-hounds, the dog that proved himself the leader of the
pack while on a hunt was decorated with a ribbon or some emblem upon the
collar. Small game was abundant in the mountains that made the "Valley
of the Three Forks o' the Wolf," but the deer and bear had withdrawn to
the less frequented hills. The hunts were for sport; there was no real
recompense in the value of the pelts.
Alvin was born in the one-room cabin on December 13, 1887. There were
two older children--Henry and Joe. Alvin's early life was different in
no way from that of other children of the mountains. He lived in touch
with nature, and without ever knowing when or how the information came
to him, he could call the birds by their names and knew the nests and
eggs of each of them, knew the trees by their leaves and their bark, and
was familiar with the haunts of the rabbit and the squirrel, the
land- and the water-turtle.
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