When they did
meet, it was very much after the manner of Indians; loitering about all
day, without having much to say, but becoming communicative as evening
advanced, and sitting up half the night before the fire, telling hunting
stories, and terrible tales of the fights of the Bloody Ground.
"Sometimes several would join in a distant hunting expedition, or rather
campaign. Expeditions of this kind lasted from November until April; during
which we laid up our stock of summer provisions. We shifted our hunting
camps from place to place, according as we found the game. They were
generally pitched near a run of water, and close by a cane-brake, to screen
us from the wind. One side of our lodge was open toward the fire. Our
horses were hoppled and turned loose in the cane-brakes, with bells round
their necks. One of the party stayed at home to watch the camp, prepare the
meals and keep off the wolves; the others hunted. When a hunter killed a
deer at a distance from the camp, he would open it and take out the
entrails; then climbing a sapling he would bend it down, tie the deer to
the top, and let it spring up again, so as to suspend the carcass out of
reach of the wolves.
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