94 HUNTING SPORTS OF THE WEST. 



rounded by trees, and without an inch of cultivated land ; 

 he subsisted mostly by shooting. He 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 

 anything 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 possi- 

 ble, and a logger-head, or pestle of hard wood, is sus- 

 pended to a balanced pole, such as is frequently fitted to 

 wells. It may be imagined that pounding corn in this 

 way 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. He rolled 

 up in his blanket all the things he^ meant to take, hung 

 his tin pot and tomahawk to his belt, and off we set into 

 the glorious freedom 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 the 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 attrac- 

 tive, 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 consisted 



