134 The K* n 9 f the Thundering Herd 



father would drive about with this rude 

 sled, using Buck as a horse, hunting the 

 chickens. As the sled went crunching 

 through the snow, it would scare up the 

 game, which would fly a dozen rods or so, 

 and then plump down in the snow. They 

 would mark the spot, and then Bennie 

 would creep up carefully and shoot the 

 chicken with his rifle. In this way seventy- 

 five or a hundred birds could be secured in 

 a day. 



When they got them home they simply 

 ripped the skin off the breast and cut out 

 that large fine chunk of meat, throwing away 

 the rest of the bird. These chicken breasts 

 were salted down, and it was not an uncom- 

 mon thing for the Andersons to have half a 

 barrel of this meat on hand at a time. This 

 seems like a great waste to us, but the coun- 

 try was new and swarmed with game and 

 fish, so the settlers merely took what they 

 could get the easiest, and if they were ex- 



