Spread of English-Speaking Peoples 175 



bold as they were ruthless. Their moccasined feet 

 made no sound as they stole softly on the camp of a 

 sleeping enemy or crept to ambush him while he 

 himself still-hunted or waylaid the deer. A fa- 

 vorite stratagem was to imitate the call of game, 

 especially the gobble of the wild turkey, and thus 

 to lure the would-be hunter to his fate. If the de- 

 ceit was guessed at, the caller was himself stalked. 

 The men grew wonderfully expert in detecting imi- 

 tation. One old hunter, Castleman by name, was 

 in after years fond of describing how an Indian 

 nearly lured him to his death. It was in the dusk of 

 the evening, when he heard the cries of two great 

 wood owls near him. Listening attentively, he be- 

 came convinced that all was not right. "The woo- 

 woo call and the woo-woo answer were not well 

 timed and toned, and the babel-chatter was a failure. 

 More than this, they seemed to be on the ground." 

 Creeping cautiously up, and peering through the 

 brush, he saw something the height of a stump be- 

 tween two forked trees. It did not look natural; he 

 aimed, pulled trigger, and killed an Indian. 



Each party of Indians or whites was ever on the 

 watch to guard against danger or to get the chance 

 of taking vengeance for former wrongs. The dark 

 woods saw a myriad lonely fights where red warrior 

 or white hunter fell and no friend of the fallen ever 

 knew his fate, where his sole memorial was the scalp 

 that hung in the smoky cabin or squalid wigwam of 

 the victor. 



The rude and fragmentary annals of the frontier 



