The frontiersmen
used the same means to trick the Indian band into betraying the
place of its ambuscade, or to lure the strays, unwitting, within
reach of the knife.
In that age, before the forests had given place to farms and
cities and when the sun had but slight acquaintance with the sod,
the summers were cool and the winters long and cold in the Back
Country. Sometimes in September severe frosts destroyed the corn.
The first light powdering called "hunting snows" fell in October,
and then the men of the Back Country set out on the chase. Their
object was meat--buffalo, deer, elk, bear-for the winter larder,
and skins to send out in the spring by pack-horses to the coast
in trade for iron, steel, and salt. The rainfall in North
Carolina was much heavier than in Virginia and, from autumn into
early winter, the Yadkin forests were sheeted with rain; but wet
weather, so far from deterring the hunter, aided him to the kill.
In blowing rain, he knew he would find the deer herding in the
sheltered places on the hillsides. In windless rain, he knew that
his quarry ranged the open woods and the high places. The fair
play of the pioneer held it a great disgrace to kill a deer in
winter when the heavy frost had crusted the deep snow. On the
crust men and wolves could travel with ease, but the deer's sharp
hoofs pierced through and made him defenseless.
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