F Heritage History | Hannah of Kentucky by James Otis
Contents ▼▲
Front Matter At Boonesborough Beginning of the Story Boone on the Yadkin Boone Moves his Family Ready for the Journey What we Wore Driving Cattle and Sheep Camping at Nightfall The Long Halt Jimmy Boone Goes to Clinch Murder of Jimmy Boone A Time of Mourning The Faint-hearted Return A New Home Making Moccasins Tanning Leather Governor Dunmore Our Home on the Clinch Household Duties Attacked by a Wildcat Fighting the Wildcat Boone and Father Return The Wilderness Road Building the Forts Boonesborough Gathering Salt Boonesborough Precautions Our Home in the Fort Ready for Cooking Furnishing the House The Hominy Block The Supply of Water Sports Inside the Fort Wrestling and Running Religion of the Indians Indian Babies Colonel Callaway Arives News from Eastern Colonies Venturing Outside the Fort Dividing the Land Who Owned Kentucky? Ready to Build a Home Billy's Hard Lot Preparing Flax Spinning and Soap Making Broom Making More Indian Murders Indian "Signs" Woodcraft and Hunting Pelts Used as Money Petition of the Settlers Making Sugar Building Fences Capture of the Girls My Willful Thoughts Finding the Trail The Pursuit The Story Told by Jemima Elizabeth's Heroism Rescuing the Girls Alarm Among the Settlers Indians on the Warpath The First Wedding The Wedding Festivities The Brides Home The Housewarming Attacks by the Indians Besieged by the Savages In the Midst of the Fight The Assault by the Indians Failure of the Assault Watchfulness of the Indians The Sortie My Father Wounded Our Wounded

Hannah of Kentucky - James Otis




Woodcraft and Hunting

He hoped to become a mighty hunter like Colonel Boone, and would spend the evenings telling me what he had learned of woodcraft. I soon came to know that one must not go for deer after the leaves have fallen and while they yet lie dry upon the ground; nor should he hunt while the snow is falling, for then he can neither track the animals nor follow their course by the blood if they have been wounded.

The best time for such work, so Billy declares, is when the snow lies two or three inches deep, when the frost is sharp and the air calm. In stormy weather deer seek the sheltered places on that side of a bill which is protected from the wind, while in rainy weather and when there is no wind, the hunter must look for them in the open woods on the highest ground.

Billy claims, and father says it is true, that one can tell direction by the bark on the trees, because on the north side it is thicker and rougher than on the south; also moss grows on the north side.

I surely hope Billy will be a great hunter and that he can hold his own with all the others in wrestling, running, leaping, and shooting, else he is likely to make a poor sort of man here in Kentucky, where strength and skill are needed if one would live and support a family.

Billy likes to tell of the night when he and father went to a salt lick three miles down the creek and built there a tiny hut of branches, in which they hold until day-break, when the deer came to drink. They killed three fine bucks and two does; on the way home Billy "called" a wild turkey within rifle range. I really wish some of the, folks on the Yadkin could hear him "gobble"; he does it so naturally that you would surely think an old turkey was strutting around close at hand. Father declares that Billy will stand at the head of our hunters when he is man grown.

[Illustration] from Hannah of Kentucky by James Otis