172 The Winning of the West 



year, killing vast quantities of every kind of game. 

 Most of it they got by fair still-hunting, but some 

 by methods we do not now consider legitimate, such 

 as calling up a doe by imitating the bleat of a fawn, 

 and shooting deer from a scaffold when they came 

 to the salt licks at night. Nevertheless, most of the 

 hunters did not approve of "crusting" the game 

 that is, of running it down on snowshoes in the deep 

 midwinter snows. 



At the end of the year some of the adventurers 

 returned home; others 20 went north into the Ken- 

 tucky country, where they hunted for several months 

 before recrossing the mountains; while the re- 

 mainder, led by an old hunter named Kasper Man- 

 sker, 21 built two boats and hollowed out of logs two 

 pirogues or dugouts clumsier but tougher craft 

 than the light birch-bark canoes and started down 

 the Cumberland. At the French Lick, where Nash- 

 ville now stands, they saw enormous quantities of 

 buffalo, elk, and other game, more than they had 

 ever seen before in any one place. Some of their 

 goods were taken by a party of Indians they met, 

 but some French traders whom they likewise en- 

 countered treated them well and gave them salt, 

 flour, tobacco, and taffia, the last being especially 

 prized, as they had had no spirits for a year. They 

 went down to Natchez, sold their furs, hides, oil, and 

 tallow, and some returned by sea, while others, in- 



20 Led by one James Knox. 



21 His real name was Kasper Mansker, as his signature 

 shows, but he was always spoken of as Mansco. 



