reat detriment of the packs.[14] In winter the fords
and mountains often became impassable, and trains were kept in one place
for weeks at a time, escaping starvation only by killing the lean
cattle; for few deer at that season remained in the mountains.

Both the water route and the wilderness road were infested by the
savages at all times, and whenever there was open war the sparsely
settled regions from which they started were likewise harried. When the
northwestern tribes threatened Fort Pitt and Fort Henry--or Pittsburg
and Wheeling, as they were getting to be called,--they threatened one of
the two localities which served to cover the communications with
Kentucky; but it was far more serious when the Holston region was
menaced, because the land travel was at first much the more important.

The early settlers of course had to suffer great hardship even when they
reached Kentucky. The only two implements the men invariably carried
were the axe and rifle, for they were almost equally proud of their
skill as warriors, hunters, and wood-choppers. Next in importance came
the sickle or scythe. The first three tasks of the pioneer farmer were
to build a cabin, to make a clearing--burning the brush, cutting down
the small trees, and girdling the large--and to plant corn. Until the
crop ripened he hunted steadily, and his family lived on the abundant
game, save for which it would have been wholly impossible to have
settled Kentucky so early. If it was winter-time, however, all the wild
meat was very lean and poor eating, unless by chance a bear was found in
a hollow tree, when there was a royal feast, the breast of the wild
turkey serving as a substitute for bread.[15] If the men were suddenly
called away by an Indian inroad, their families sometimes had to live
for days on boiled tops of green nettles.[16] Naturally the children
watched the growth of the tasselled corn with hungry eagerness until the
milky ears were fit for roasting. When they hardened, the grains were
pounded into hominy in the hominy-block, or else ground into meal in the
rough hand-mill, made of two limestones in a hollow sycamore log. Until
flax could be grown the women were obliged to be content with lint made
from the bark of dead nettles. This was gathered in the spring-time by
all the people of a station acting together, a portion of the men
standing guard while the rest, with the women and children, plucked the
dead stalks. The smart girls of Iris