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He improvised a spit a straight limb that would make a good spear, shaped to a point and fire-hardened and put a haunch on to roast for lunch. Thanking whatever Traiti metallurgist had developed a knife alloy that held an edge under steady abuse, he set about making moccasins from the tough noxi skin, using his own foot as the pattern, gut for thread, and his knife as an awl.
Under their erosive influence the original mountains were cut down somewhat, but the erstwhile molten material, being, as we have said, fire-hardened, wasted very little, or not at all, and, as a consequence, stands forth above its present surroundings in exact mould of the ancient cracks or holes. Now, some dikes are long and narrow, others are short and wide, and still others are nearly round.
It may be remarked that the arrows aforesaid were iron-tipped instead of being simply fire-hardened, and in the feathering of each a single plume of the scarlet tanager had been carefully inserted. Presumably, the vermilion feather was the owner's private sign of his work as a marksman.
The natives had daggers, knives, axes, adzes, hammers, and spears of stone, bone, shark teeth, and fire-hardened wood, but metals were unknown to them, and this long, glittering blade, that cut a javelin stem as the javelin would crack a rib, was a daily wonder.
Thereupon the interior fires were released, and these, vomiting up a vast supply of molten material, filled said chasms and holes to the very brim. The molten material cooled into fire-hardened rock. The rains descended and the snows melted.
A hundred blacks, some few armed with ancient Sniders, but the greater portion armed with tomahawks, fire-hardened spears, and bone-tipped arrows, clustered on the roots that rose out of the bay. No word was spoken. Each party watched the other across twenty feet of water.
So the arrows were made, six each with nail points filed sharp and lashed with broom wire. These were called "War arrows," and six each with fire-hardened wood points for hunting arrows. "Now for the feathering," and Yan showed Sam how to split the midrib of a turkey feather and separate the vane. "Le's see, you want twice twenty-four that's forty-eight feathers."
Screams of fear and pain told me that the front ranks had begun to fall, horse and foot together, into the cunningly devised snares of which with so much labour we had dug many, concealing them with earth spread over thin wickerwork, or rather interlaced boughs. Into them went the forerunners, to be pierced by the sharp, fire-hardened stakes set at the bottom of each pit.
Each slip is some six inches in length, and its sharp, fire-hardened point projects upwards and a little outwards. If the attacking party is likely to approach by the river, a trap may be arranged at some point where, by reason of rapids or rocks, the boats are likely to be delayed. Here a large tree overhanging the river is chosen for the trap.
And their war weapons were laid away by the sides of the lifeless bones that had wielded them rusty old horse-pistols, derringers, pepper-boxes, five-barrelled fantastiques, Kentucky long riffles, muskets handled in trade by John Company and Hudson's Bay, shark-tooth swords, wooden stabbing-knives, arrows and spears bone-headed of the fish and the pig and of man, and spears and arrows wooden-headed and fire-hardened.
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