250 "WILD SPORTS IN THE FAIl WEST. 



rounded by trees, and without an inch of cultivated 

 land ; he subsisted mostly by shooting. lie had only 

 lately arrived ; his mother, wife, and sister lived in the 

 house with him. As he had no flour in store, it was 

 necessary to grind some, but his mill was more like a 

 mortar than any thing else. Such mills are frequent in 

 Arkansas. A sound tree is cut off about three feet 

 from the ground, and hollowed by fire, knife, and 

 chisel till it will hold about as much as a pail; it is 

 made as smooth as possible, and a logger-head, or pestle 

 of hard wood, is suspended to a balanced pole, such as 

 is frequently fitted to wells. It may be imagined that 

 pounding corn in this w r ay is hard work, and as only a 

 small quantity at a time can be prepared, it has to be 

 done before every meal ; but this is the only resource 

 of all those who are too poor to buy a steel mill. At 

 last Curly had as much as would serve for two days, in 

 case we shot nothing. lie rolled up in his Blanket all 

 the things he meant to take, hung his tin pot and toma- 

 hawk to his belt, and oif we set into the glorious free- 

 dom of the forest. 



We might have gone about three miles, when we 

 came on the trail of several deer, though we had seen 

 nothing of tin 1 precious creatures themselves ; and as it 

 began to grow dark, and we found ourselves near a 

 bubbling spring, and a black hawberry bush looked 

 very attractive, we resolved to camp there, and to begin 

 our sport as early as possible in the morning. "We cast 

 off our blankets, laid down our rifles, and collected 

 wood for a fire, the night promising to be rather cold. 

 We soon had a fire of which a volcano need not have 

 been ashamed, and lay down to repose. Our supper con- 



