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Their long hunting shirts were girded with bead-worked belts. Some wore caps made of mink or of coonskins, with the tails hanging down behind; others had soft hats, in each of which was fastened either a sprig of evergreen or a buck's tail. Nearly all were armed with what was called the Deckhard rifle, remarkable for the precision and the distance of its shot.
But toward the close of the eighteenth century a gunsmith named Deckhard, living at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, began making flintlock rifles of small bore, and in a short time the "Deckhard rifle" was to be found in the hands of almost every backwoodsman.
The Indians called them the "white man's flies," and believed they heralded the coming of permanent settlements. I hoped the augury was a true one, but there were times when I doubted. Making sure that the priming of my long Deckhard rifle was dry, I crawled out into the thicket and stood erect.
Had I been new to the border I should have disbelieved my companion's statement. Leading the horse, I started down the bank while Cousin climbed higher. It was not until my horse slid down a ten-foot bank that I heard a hostile sound the rush of many feet through last year's dead leaves. I heard the Deckhard fired once, and instantly the side of the ridge was as quiet as a death-chamber.
That they must have heard the roar of the smoothbore and the whip-like crack of my Deckhard was not to be doubted. Nor would they fail to guess the truth, inasmuch as the rifle had spoken last. It became very difficult to keep along the side of the slope and I dismounted and led the horse. The prolonged howl of a wolf sounded behind.
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