144 The Winning of the West 



done. Chaff beds were thrown on the floor of the 

 loft, if the house-owner was well off. Each cabin 

 had a hand-mill and a hominy block; the last was 

 borrowed from the Indians, and was only a large 

 block of wood, with a hole burned in the top, as a 

 mortar, where the pestle was worked. If there were 

 any sugar maples accessible, they were tapped every 

 year. 



But some articles, especially salt and iron, could 

 not be produced in the backwoods. In order to get 

 them each family collected during the year all the 

 furs possible, these being valuable and yet easily 

 carried on pack-horses, the sole means of transport. 

 Then, after seeding time, in the fall, the people of a 

 neighborhood ordinarily joined in sending down a 

 train of peltry-laden pack-horses to some large sea- 

 coast or tidal-river trading town, where their bur- 

 dens were bartered for the needed iron and salt. 

 The unshod horses all had bells hung round their 

 neck ; the clappers were stopped during the day, but 

 when the train was halted for the night, and the 

 horses were hobbled and turned loose, the bells were 

 once more unstopped. 42 Several men accompanied 



42 Doddridge, 156. He gives an interesting anecdote of one 

 man engaged in helping such a pack-train, the bell of whose 

 horse was stolen. The thief was recovered, and whipped as 

 a punishment, the owner exclaiming as he laid the strokes 

 lustily on: "Think what a rascally figure I should make in 

 the streets of Baltimore without a bell on my horse." He 

 had never been out of the woods before ; he naturally wished 

 to look well on his first appearance in civilized life, and it 

 never occurred to him that a good horse was left without 

 a bell anywhere. 



