Meshack laughed loudly.
“Well, I reckon, you would have been bent, too,” said he. “For this fellow was surely a scrapper. Here, help me swing him on a pole and we will take him home for the winter’s supply of food.”
This they did, and Bruin increased very materially the slender larder for the winter months, when snow covered the trackless forests and it was impossible to hunt, to fish, or to secure venison or bear-meat in the deep and sombre woodland.
The early settlers, you see, being but few in numbers, had a hard time to maintain themselves; if they had not been extremely economical they could not have lived in the wilderness at all. They fashioned their own clothes, they raised flax and wool, which the women spun and wove into linen and linsey for the men; and made flannel for their own wear. If any man wished to hire help there would be an understanding beforehand as to what the wages were to be paid in. Sometimes pork, beef, honey, or corn was used as a substitute for money. Sometimes a calf, pig, deer-skin, bear-skin, coon-skin, or a wolf’s scalp would suffice. The settlers all lived in cabins, and fed their children on bread, meat, butter, honey, and milk. Coffee and tea were almost out of the question. A few of the older ladies, who had been raised in other parts of the country, alone could use these staples of diet. Meat was plentiful, for, if the farmers could keep the wild animals away from their hogs, the nuts and acorns would make them very fat. Pork, beef, bear-meat, and venison were easily obtained. Wild meat was not thought very much of, because it was most plentiful at all times.
Politics were little understood among the men in buckskin. Most of them were Federalists. An election was usually held on the first Monday in October, when all the settlers would gather at the polling booths, arrayed in hunting-shirt and moccasins, almost every one of them with a big knife stuck in his belt. A stranger would have thought this some military party going to war, and, if a quarrel occurred, the two contestants would rip off both coat and shirt, and fight until one or the other acknowledged that he was the beaten individual. Then their friends would take the bleeding combatants to the nearest stream and give them both a good washing. This would usually end the quarrel. The people were generous to strangers travelling through the country, and if a wayfarer lost his path a hunter would pilot him five, six, or even ten miles, until he was out of danger of being lost. They would refuse all compensation for their services.
In such a community Meshack Browning continued his life, and, in spite of numerous hairbreadth escapes from wounded bears and panthers, successfully escaped from any serious injuries, and he did not kill merely for the sake of killing. Honest and warm sentiments stirred his bosom, as the following story will show.
One day he was following a large buck, which ran into a crevice in some high rocks and there lay down. The trapper hurried after him, and, mounting a large boulder, eagerly searched for a view of the cunning animal. He stood on the rock and looked about him with the utmost care, but could see nothing of the buck, until casting his eyes down at the base of the rock directly below where he stood, there lay the fine fellow contentedly chewing his cud, apparently considering himself perfectly secure. He was watching the ground in front, not thinking that an enemy could approach on the side which the rocks so completely covered. Let me here quote the old trapper:
“The rock being fully twenty feet high, I was obliged to shoot nearly straight down, but when I saw what a complete advantage I had, it greatly marred my pleasure to think that such a noble animal, possessing all the beauty bestowed by a pair of fine, large horns, a well formed body, and tapering limbs; whose life had been innocently spent (never having committed an injury against either man or beast) should be thus sacrified. My desire of killing him was so weakened, that I really had thought of letting him escape the death that was then hanging over him, but again it occurred to me that he was one of the creatures placed here for the use of man, that, if I let him go, probably the next hunter who caught him in his power would surely kill him, and that it would be as well for me to take him as to let any other person have him.
“So, taking a good aim, I fired at this monarch of the forest, when the poor fellow gave a few jumps, and fell dead. I declare the death of that deer gave me more real pain than pleasure. He was a large, old fellow, his head and his face being quite gray with age. I took his skin and returned to my cabin, having the river to wade and at least a mile to travel before I could reach home. The winter being then near, I believe that the death of this buck ended the fall hunt.”
The seasoned trapper was not always accustomed to shoot bears. Sometimes he would trap them in large log traps, hewn out of the forest timber by means of the axe. To entice the animals into this box, he used to roast the leg of a deer, and, while the meat was cooking, he would rub honey over it, so that it would smell very strongly of the latter. Then he would cut off pieces of this sweetened meat, would tie them beneath his moccasins, would walk through the grounds which the bears frequented and would return to the trap. Every bear which smelled his tracks would follow the trail to the trap and would get caught in it.