174 The Winning of the West 



two of the men had been killed and the other chased 

 away by the Indians, who, however, had not found 

 the camp. The dogs, having seen no human face for 

 three months, were very wild, yet in a few days be- 

 came as tame and well trained as ever. They killed 

 such enormous quantities of buffalo, elk, and es- 

 pecially deer, that they could not pack the hides into 

 camp, and one of the party, during an idle mo- 

 ment and in a spirit of protest against fate, 24 carved 

 on the peeled trunk of a fallen poplar, where it long 

 remained, the sentence, "2300 deer skins lost; 

 ruination by God !" The soul of this thrifty hunter 

 must have been further grieved when a party of 

 Cherokees visited their camp and took away all the 

 camp utensils and five hundred hides. The whites 

 found the broad track they made in coming in, but 

 could not find where they had gone out, each wily 

 redskin then covering his own trail, and the whole 

 number apparently breaking up into several parties. 

 Sometimes the Indians not only plundered the 

 hunting camps but killed the hunters as well, and 

 the hunters retaliated in kind. Often the white 

 men and red fought one another whenever they met, 

 and displayed in their conflicts all the cunning and 

 merciless ferocity that made forest warfare so 

 dreadful. Terrible deeds of prowess were done by 

 the mighty men on either side. It was a war of 

 stealth and cruelty, and ceaseless, sleepless watch- 

 fulness. The contestants had sinewy frames and 

 iron wills, keen eyes and steady hands, hearts as 

 94 A hunter named Bledsoe; Collins, II., 418. 



