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Jim Rader's Web site www.rader.org |
SALT.Salt was for a long time a great luxury with the old settlers, and, as you may imagine, was difficult to obtain. People, on their hunting expeditions discovered trails leading or converging to a point, like the spokes of a wheel, and by following these trails, discovered that they lead to "salt licks." These salt licks were places where salt-water oozed from the ground, and to which the deer and buffalo would come to lick the salt. Hence, they were called "salt licks." The people boiled and evaporated this water, and thus obtained their first supplies of salt. The licks were the best places for the hunter to kill these animals. At the same time, other beings would know by instinct or experience, the same thing as the white hunter. The Indian had known, long before the white man, this favorite spot, and he, too, most likely, would be watching beside this same lick, and the white man would have to exercise the greatest caution, or he would receive a bullet that was at first intended by the Indian for a deer. When the Indians learned that the white men were hunting at the lick, they kept almost a continual watch on the trails that led to them, so that it became too dangerous for the settlers to hunt at them. The panther also knew that the deer would come to lick the salt-water and it was not an infrequent sight to see two or three of these ferocious brutes lying stretched on the limbs of as many trees, ready to spring on the unsuspecting animal that chanced to pass within reach. He, too, was a foe to be dreaded by the hunter; for such a mark for a rifle as he would make stretched out his full length on a horizontal limb, would constitute a temptation too strong to be resisted by the hunter. Stange as it may seem, more shots by an experienced hunter would result in wounding than in killing the animal; and then, unless badly crippled, he would make a ferocious assault on the hunter, who considered himself fortunate to escape with his life. If he did not have time to reload his gun, and the beast came on him, he would fight, using his gun barrel and large hunting knife.
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