us vanished
inhabitants of this country--of certain evidences of ancient mining
ventures where still lay curious outlandish tools; he felt certain of
the existence of copper and lead, and he believed most faithfully too in
the proximity of gold; for his own part, he declared, he thought the
geological formation indicated its presence. These themes, transferred
to the great hall, served to fill it with eager discussions and clouds
of tobacco smoke, and to detain the settlers as long as the regulations
would admit of the presence of visitors. As to iron and other minerals,
the springs indicated iron ore beyond a doubt, and he inquired earnestly
had any one ever tried to obtain salt by the usual primitive process of
boiling and evaporation at the big salt-lick down the river? Thus nobody
was surprised when Captain Stuart and the quartermaster and a detail of
soldiers and a lot of big cauldrons were reported to be actively engaged
in the effort to manufacture salt down at the lick. No necessary
connection was apprehended between the circumstances when four
packhorses came over the mountain laden with salt, for even after that
event Captain Stuart continued the boiling and stirring that went on
down at the lick.

Hamish wondered how long he would care to keep up the blind, for the
need of salt for the preservation of more meat had by this last
importation been satisfied. Perhaps Stuart himself felt it a relief when
one day it chanced that some buffalo bulls met at the salt-lick,--as if
by appointment,--and the battle that ensued among them was loud and long
and stormy. So numerous were the contestants, and so fiercely did the
conflict wage, that the officer and his force were compelled to climb to
a scaffold built in one of the gigantic trees, used by the settlers who
were wont to wait here for the big game and fire down upon them without
the danger of being trampled to death.

This battle had other observers: a great panther in the same tree
crouched on a limb not far above the soldiers, and sly and cowardly as
the creature is, gazed at them with a snarling fierce distention of
jaws, plainly unaware of any weapons that could obviate the distance,
and counting on a lingering remnant of the party as evidently as on the
slain bison to be left on the ground when the battle should be over. Now
and again came a glimpse of the stealthy approach of wolves, which the
tumult of the conflict had lured to the great carcass of the defe