A hunter's life. 363 



cattle in them, for which they paid from fifty ,o seventy- 

 five cents per head. This being soon discovered by Penn- 

 sylvanians, they followed the example of Virginia ; and 

 from April to September they crowded the glades with 

 hundreds and thousands of cattle, eating, tramping, and 

 running over every place in the glade country. 



Meantime, the herders were at all times in the glades, 

 calling to and whooping at the cattle, besides shooting 

 at the deer and other game, until the animals became 

 alarmed, and all the best of thosfi thai were not suckling 

 fawns abandoned the glades and hid in the mountains ; 

 when the deer, owing to this constant slaughter, became 

 scarce. Those herders would bleat like a fawn, and when 

 the distressed mother would come, they would shoot her 

 down, and leave the poor little fawn to starve. 



This cruel practice was carried on until the neighboring 

 settlers became so much annoyed at it that they petitioned 

 the Legislature to pass some law, or laws, for their relief. 

 But, unhappily, no law was ever enacted which could pre- 

 vent the practice ; and the people, seeing themselves still 

 imposed on, and the laws made for their benefit and relief 

 entirely disregarded, rose, went to the glades in the night, 

 and there attacked and shot numbers of the cattle ; and 

 no doubt they would have shot the herders also if they had 

 attempted to rescue their flocks. 



This, in a great measure, put a stop for some years to 

 the herding of foreign cattle, but not until the game was 

 seriously thinned by these and other means, no less dis- 

 graceful ; such as chasing the deer in deep snows, when 

 they could not help themselves, and when neither meat nor 

 skin was fit for use. Hundreds were destroyed in this 

 way ; and, between the one and the other practice, the 

 breed of deer in Allegany has become very scarce. 



After the lapse of a few years, the same plan of herding 

 was again put in operation, with more ruinous conse- 



