d a moss pad under the barrel
to keep it from jerking and spoiling the aim. They wrestled with each
other, mastered the tricks of throwing an opponent, and learned the
scalp hold instead of the toe hold. It was part of their education
to imitate the noises of every bird and beast of the forest. So they
learned to lure the turkey within range, or by the bleat of a fawn to
bring her dam to the rifle. A well-simulated wolf's howl would call
forth a response and so inform the lone hunter of the vicinity of the
pack. This forest speech was not only the language of diplomacy in the
hunting season; it was the borderer's secret code in war. Stray Indians
put themselves in touch again with the band by turkey calls in the
daytime and by owl or wolf notes at night. 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. Wolves and dogs destroyed great quantities of deer
caught in this way; and men who shot deer under these conditions were
considered no huntsmen. There was, indeed, a practical side to this
chivalry of the chase, for meat and pelt were both poor at this season;
but the true hunter also obeyed the finer tenet of his code, for he