h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I think often of a man I knew from my earliest years. His name was James Seguajiah. We grew up in the same place and were always together. We camped always and hunted from when we were very young. When I was 12 he and I started a trap line and work all Winter sometimes spending several nights in the wood. We sometimes disagreed but never argued. In this he was better than a wife.

We made traps each year after that. Some times many sometimes few depending on our need. Some years we had good money mostly and had only to make a short line. Some years were very hard and even with a long line were very hard. We shared between our families like in the days of my fathers.

He was a good man and always we watched over one another. When I moved with my family I missed him very much and we wrote often. When he was 25 he made a trap line and worked it by himself because I was moved. It was a very hard Winter and very much colder and bitter. I told him he should keep his line short or at least put up several wikki along the line. He said he needed the money badly and that the pelts were very fine that year. I sent to him as much money as I was able but I knew it was not as much as needed for his wife and children so I understood.

One day he fell in a beaver pond and had a very bad time to get out of the ice. I am told he tried to make fire but could not. He then walked for a long way to the one camp he made but could not go the whole path. It was very cold that day even in the teens below zero farenheit. He was found as at rest upon a bed of cedar boughs that he had cut and some he pulled over himself to block the wind.

We both made fire in many ways but not all of them work sometimes especially when wet. Even a flint and steel is hard with cold hands and I think that was the case for him. Maybe I think too that his tinder was wetted, but he would have found some good, that is why I think it was that his hands were very cold.

When he went over I was very angry that he needed so much money. I was angry too that he did not build wikki as I said to him. He was stubborn as a child and more as a man. I write sometimes to his son and to his mother and his daughter. They are good people and I wish to see them.

I miss my freind very much and look forward to see him and hunt and fish again with him. It will be a good thing.