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"There they go, like dogs with so many half-filled shot-pouches dangling at their tails, and no fear of their breaking their order; for what the brutes in the rear didn't hear with their own ears, they'll conceit they did: besides, if they change their minds, it may be no hard matter to get the Jack to sing the rest of his tune!"
Our arrows are pointed with flint and our lances with stone. Our shot-pouches are not light. But we love peace. Tell us, what doth the Mandane offer for the blood of the young man? Is it to be peace or war? Shall we be friends or enemies? Do you raise the tomahawk, or pipe of peace? Say, great chief of the Mandanes, what is thy answer?"
The mode of conducting it was this: Every two or three families who chanced to be intimate when the ice was sufficiently strong and smooth for sledge-travelling, sent forth a party of young hunters, with their sisters and sweethearts, in a sledge covered at the one end, which was also well cushioned and gaily painted; the ladies in their best winter-dresses took possession of it, while the hunters occupied the exposed part, with guns, shot-pouches, and hunting-knives, in complete readiness.
Every article of hunting-gear is overhauled again and again; boots are greased, shot-pouches filled, powder-charges remeasured, guns cleaned and ramrods oiled; and I once had a fine Manton as sweet a piece as ever came to the shoulder almost ruined by an eager friend, who, after going through all this during a stormy morning, insisted on taking off the locks and triggers, just to while away the time.
The wardrobe of the family was equally plain and simple. The walls of the house were hung round with the dresses of the females, the hunting-shirts, clothes, and the arms and shot-pouches of the men. "The labor and employment of a pioneer family were distributed in accordance with surrounding circumstances.
Great, tall, raw-boned Kentuckians, attired in hunting-shirts, and trailing their loose joints over a vast extent of territory, with the easy lounge peculiar to the race, rifles stacked away in the corner, shot-pouches, game-bags, hunting-dogs, and little negroes, all rolled together in the corners, were the characteristic features in the picture.
They were clad in loose hunting-frocks, leather leggings, and broad black hats; had powder-horns and shot-pouches hung about them; were armed with bowie-knives, Mississippi rifles, and horse-pistols; rode Spanish ponies, and were impelled by Destiny to conquer, like their remote ancestors, "the godless hosts of Pagan" who "came swimming o'er the Northern Sea."
Their shot-pouches would have made but an indifferent defence against the charge of a supperless tiger; and the philosopher might have finished his earthly career in the retaliatory jaws of the lord of the jungle.
He talked learnedly of hunting, quoting written authorities upon this or that point, of whom the unenlightened Virginians had never heard, much less read; equipped himself for the sport in a bewildering arsenal of new-fangled guns, game-bags, shot-pouches, and powder-horns, with numerous belts, diagonal, perpendicular, and horizontal, and in the field carried his gun a la Winkle; never, by any happy accident, brought down his bird, but was continually outraging sporting rules by firing out of time, and flushing coveys prematurely by unseasonable talking and precipitate strides in advance of his disgusted companions.
Breakfast over, the three hunters clothed themselves in habiliments suitable to the climate leathern coats and trousers which were impervious to the wind; cloth leggings to keep the snow from the trousers; leather mocassins, or shoes with three pairs of blanket socks inside of them; fur-caps with ear-pieces; leather mittens with an apartment for the fingers and a separate chamber for the thumb, powder-horns, shot-pouches, guns, and snow-shoes.
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