fort and
about a mile from the river Henry and Paul found a beaver dam across a
tributary creek and they laid rude traps for its builders, six of which
they caught in the course of time. Ross and Sol showed them how to take
off the pelts which would be of value when trade should be opened with
the east, and also how to cook beaver tail, a dish which could, with
truth, be called a rival of buffalo hump.

Now the settlers began to accumulate a great supply of game at
Wareville. Elk and deer and bear and buffalo and smaller animals were
being jerked and dried at every house, and every larder was filled to
the brim. There could be no lack of food the coming winter, the settlers
said, and they spoke with some pride of their care and providence.

The village was gaining in both comfort and picturesqueness. Tanned
skins of the deer, elk, buffalo, bear, wolf, panther and wild cat hung
on the walls of every house, and were spread on every floor. The women
contrived fans and ornaments of the beautiful mottled plumage of the
wild turkey. Cloth was hard to obtain in the wilderness, as it might be
a year before a pack train would come over the mountains from the east,
and so the women made clothing of the softest and lightest of the
dressed deer skin. There were hunting shirts for the men and boys,
fastened at the waist by a belt, and with a fringe three or four inches
long, the bottom of which fell to the knees. The men and boys also made
themselves caps of raccoon skin with the tail sewed on behind as a
decoration. Henry and Paul were very proud of theirs.

The finest robes of buffalo skin were saved for the beds, and Ross gave
warning that they should have full need of them. Winters in Kentucky, he
said, were often cold enough to freeze the very marrow in one's bones,
when even the wildest of men would be glad enough to leave the woods and
hover over a big fire. But the settlers provided for this also by
building great stacks of firewood beside each house. They were as well
equipped with axes--keen, heavy weapons--as they were with rifles and
ammunition, and these were as necessary. The forest around Wareville
already gave great proof of their prowess with the ax.

Now the autumn was waning. Every morning the wilderness gleamed and
sparkled beneath a beautiful covering of white frost. The brown in the
leaves began to usurp the yellows and the reds. The air, crisp and cold,
had a strange nectar in it and its very breath was lif