David Crockett

CHAPTER XI.

The Dis­ap­point­ed Politi­cian.–Off for Texas.

Tri­umphal Re­turn.–Home Charms Van­ish.–Los­es His Elec­tion.–Bit­ter Dis­ap­point­ment.–Crock­ett’s Po­et­ry.–Sets out for Texas.–In­ci­dents of the Jour­ney.–Re­cep­tion at Lit­tle Rock.–The Shoot­ing Match.–Meet­ing a Cler­gy­man.–The Jug­gler.–Crock­ett a Re­former.–The Bee Hunter.–The Rough Strangers.–Scene on the Prairie.

Crock­ett’s re­turn to his home was a sig­nal tri­umph all the way. At Bal­ti­more, Philadel­phia, Pitts­burgh, Cincin­nati, Louisville, crowds gath­ered to greet him. He was feast­ed, re­ceived presents, was com­pli­ment­ed, and was in­ces­sant­ly called up­on for a speech. He was an earnest stu­dent as he jour­neyed along. A new world of won­ders were open­ing be­fore him. Thoughts which he nev­er be­fore had dreamed of were rush­ing in­to his mind. His eyes were ev­er watch­ful to see all that was wor­thy of note. His ear was ev­er lis­ten­ing for ev­ery new idea. He scarce­ly ev­er looked at the print­ed page, but pe­rused with the ut­most dili­gence the book of na­ture. His com­ments up­on what he saw in­di­cate much sagac­ity.

At Cincin­nat­ti and Louisville, im­mense crowds as­sem­bled to hear him. In both places he spoke quite at length. And all who heard him were sur­prised at the pow­er he dis­played. Though his speech was rude and un­pol­ished, the clear­ness of his views, and the in­tel­li­gence he man­ifest­ed, caused the jour­nals gen­er­al­ly to speak of him in quite a dif­fer­ent strain from that which they had been ac­cus­tomed to use. Prob­ably nev­er did a man make so much in­tel­lec­tu­al progress, in the course of a few months, as David Crock­ett had made in that time. His won­der­ful mem­ory of names, dates, facts, all the in­tri­ca­cies of statis­tics, was such, that al­most any states­man might be in­struct­ed by his ad­dress­es, and not many men could safe­ly en­counter him in ar­gu­ment. The views he pre­sent­ed up­on the sub­ject of the Con­sti­tu­tion, fi­nance, in­ter­nal im­prove­ments, etc., were very sur­pris­ing, when one con­sid­ers the lim­it­ed ed­uca­tion he had en­joyed. At the close of these ag­itat­ing scenes he touch­ing­ly writes:

“In a short time I set out for my own home; yes, my own home, my own soil, my hum­ble dwelling, my own fam­ily, my own hearts, my ocean of love and af­fec­tion, which nei­ther cir­cum­stances nor time can dry up. Here, like the wea­ried bird, let me set­tle down for a while, and shut out the world.”

But hunt­ing bears had lost its charms for Crock­ett. He had been so flat­tered that it is prob­able that he ful­ly ex­pect­ed to be cho­sen Pres­ident of the Unit­ed States. There were two great par­ties then di­vid­ing the coun­try, the Democrats and the Whigs. The great ob­ject of each was to find an avail­able can­di­date, no mat­ter how un­fit for the of­fice. The lead­ers wished to elect a Pres­ident who would be, like the Queen of Eng­land, mere­ly the or­na­men­tal fig­ure-​head of the ship of state, while their en­er­gies should pro­pel and guide the ma­jes­tic fab­ric. For a time some few thought it pos­si­ble that in the pop­ular­ity of the great bear-​hunter such a can­di­date might be found.

Crock­ett, up­on his re­turn home, re­sumed his deer­skin leg­gins, his fringed hunt­ing-​shirt, his fox-​skin cap, and shoul­der­ing his ri­fle, plunged, as he thought, with his orig­inal zest, in­to the cheer­less, tan­gled, marshy for­est which sur­round­ed him. But the ex­cite­ments of Wash­ing­ton, the splen­did en­ter­tain­ments of Philadel­phia, New York, and Boston, the flat­tery, the speech-​mak­ing, which to him, with his mar­vel­lous mem­ory and his won­der­ful flu­en­cy of speech, was as easy as breath­ing, the ap­plause show­ered up­on him, and the gor­geous vi­sion of the Pres­iden­cy loom­ing up be­fore him, en­grossed his mind. He saun­tered list­less­ly through the for­est, his bear-​hunt­ing en­er­gies all par­alyzed. He soon grew very weary of home and of all its em­ploy­ments, and was ea­ger to re­turn to the in­finite­ly high­er ex­cite­ments of po­lit­ical life.

Gen­er­al Jack­son was then al­most idol­ized by his par­ty. All through the South and West his name was a tow­er of strength. Crock­ett had orig­inal­ly been elect­ed as a Jack­son-​man. He had aban­doned the Ad­min­is­tra­tion, and was now one of the most in­vet­er­ate op­po­nents of Jack­son. The ma­jor­ity in Crock­ett’s dis­trict were in fa­vor of Jack­son. The time came for a new elec­tion of a rep­re­sen­ta­tive. Crock­ett made ev­ery ef­fort, in his old style, to se­cure the vote. He ap­peared at the gath­er­ings in his garb as a bear-​hunter, with his ri­fle on his shoul­der. He brought ‘coon­skins to buy whiskey to treat his friends. A ‘coon­skin in the cur­ren­cy of that coun­try was con­sid­ered the equiv­alent for twen­ty-​five cents. He made fun­ny speech­es. But it was all in vain.

Great­ly to his sur­prise, and still more to his cha­grin, he lost his elec­tion. He was beat­en by two hun­dred and thir­ty votes. The whole pow­er­ful in­flu­ence of the Gov­ern­ment was ex­ert­ed against Crock­ett and in fa­vor of his com­peti­tor. It is said that large bribes were paid for votes. Crock­ett wrote, in a strain which re­veals the bit­ter­ness of his dis­ap­point­ment:

“I am grat­ified that I have spo­ken the truth to the peo­ple of my dis­trict, re­gard­less of the con­se­quences. I would not be com­pelled to bow down to the idol for a seat in Congress dur­ing life. I have nev­er known what it was to sac­ri­fice my own judg­ment to grat­ify any par­ty; and I have no doubt of the time be­ing close at hand when I shall be re­ward­ed for let­ting my tongue speak what my heart thinks. I have suf­fered my­self to be po­lit­ical­ly sac­ri­ficed to save my coun­try from ru­in and dis­grace; and if I am nev­er again elect­ed, I will have the grat­ifi­ca­tion to know that I have done my du­ty. I may add, in the words of the man in the play, ‘Crock­ett’s oc­cu­pa­tion’s gone.’”

Two weeks af­ter this he writes, “I con­fess the thorn still ran­kles, not so much on my own ac­count as the na­tion’s. As my coun­try no longer re­quires my ser­vices, I have made up my mind to go to Texas. My life has been one of dan­ger, toil, and pri­va­tion. But these dif­fi­cul­ties I had to en­counter at a time when I con­sid­ered it noth­ing more than right good sport to sur­mount them. But now I start up­on my own hook, and God on­ly grant that it may be strong enough to sup­port the weight that may be hung up­on it. I have a new row to hoe, a long and rough one; but come what will, I will go ahead.”

Just be­fore leav­ing for Texas, he at­tend­ed a po­lit­ical meet­ing of his con­stituents. The fol­low­ing ex­tract from his au­to­bi­og­ra­phy will give the read­er a very vivid idea of his feel­ings at the time, and of the very pe­cu­liar char­ac­ter which cir­cum­stances had de­vel­oped in him:

“A few days ago I went to a meet­ing of my con­stituents. My ap­petite for pol­itics was at one time just about as sharp set as a saw-​mill, but late events have giv­en me some­thing of a sur­feit, more than I could well di­gest; still, habit, they say, is sec­ond natur, and so I went, and gave them a piece of my mind touch­ing ‘the Gov­ern­ment’ and the suc­ces­sion, by way of a cod­icil to what I have of­ten said be­fore.

“I told them, more­over, of my ser­vices, pret­ty straight up and down, for a man may be al­lowed to speak on such sub­jects when oth­ers are about to for­get them; and I al­so told them of the man­ner in which I had been knocked down and dragged out, and that I did not con­sid­er it a fair fight any­how they could fix it. I put the in­gre­di­ents in the cup pret­ty strong I tell you, and I con­clud­ed my speech by telling them that I was done with pol­itics for the present, and that they might all go to hell, and I would go to Texas.

“When I re­turned home I felt a sort of cast down at the change that had tak­en place in my for­tunes, and sor­row, it is said, will make even an oys­ter feel po­et­ical. I nev­er tried my hand at that sort of writ­ing but on this par­tic­ular oc­ca­sion such was my state of feel­ing, that I be­gan to fan­cy my­self in­spired; so I took pen in hand, and as usu­al I went ahead. When I had got fair­ly through, my po­et­ry looked as zigzag as a worm-​fence; the lines wouldn’t tal­ly no how; so I showed them to Pe­leg Longfel­low, who has a first-​rate rep­uta­tion with us for that sort of writ­ing, hav­ing some years ago made a car­ri­er’s ad­dress for the Nashville Ban­ner; and Pe­leg lopped of some lines, and stretched out oth­ers; but I wish I may be shot if I don’t rather think he has made it worse than it was when I placed it in his hands. It be­ing my first, and, no doubt, last piece of po­et­ry, I will print it in this place, as it will serve to ex­press my feel­ings on leav­ing my home, my neigh­bors, and friends and coun­try, for a strange land, as ful­ly as I could in plain prose.

“Farewell to the moun­tains whose mazes to me Were more beau­ti­ful far than Eden could be; No fruit was for­bid­den, but Na­ture had spread Her boun­ti­ful board, and her chil­dren were fed. The hills were our gar­ners–our herds wild­ly grew And Na­ture was shep­herd and hus­band­man too. I felt like a monarch, yet thought like a man, As I thanked the Great Giv­er, and wor­shipped his plan.

“The home I for­sake where my off­spring arose; The graves I for­sake where my chil­dren re­pose. The home I re­deemed from the sav­age and wild; The home I have loved as a fa­ther his child; The corn that I plant­ed, the fields that I cleared, The flocks that I raised, and the cab­in I reared; The wife of my bo­som–Farewell to ye all! In the land of the stranger I rise or I fall.

“Farewell to my coun­try! I fought for thee well, When the sav­age rushed forth like the demons from hell In peace or in war I have stood by thy side– My coun­try, for thee I have lived, would have died! But I am cast off, my ca­reer now is run, And I wan­der abroad like the prodi­gal son– Where the wild sav­age roves, and the broad prairies spread, The fall­en–de­spised–will again go ahead.”

A par­ty of Amer­ican ad­ven­tur­ers, then called fil­ibusters, had gone in­to Texas, in the en­deav­or to wrest that im­mense and beau­ti­ful ter­ri­to­ry, larg­er than the whole Em­pire of France, from fee­ble, dis­tract­ed, mis­er­able Mex­ico, to which it be­longed. These fil­ibusters were gen­er­al­ly the most worth­less and des­per­ate vagabonds to be found in all the South­ern States. Many South­ern gen­tle­men of wealth and abil­ity, but strong ad­vo­cates of slav­ery, were in cor­dial sym­pa­thy with this move­ment, and aid­ed it with their purs­es, and in many oth­er ways. It was thought that if Texas could be wrest­ed from Mex­ico and an­nexed to the Unit­ed States, it might be di­vid­ed in­to sev­er­al slave­hold­ing States, and thus check the rapid­ly in­creas­ing pre­pon­der­ance of the free States of the North.

To join in this en­ter­prise, Crock­ett now left his home, his wife, his chil­dren. There could be no doubt of the even­tu­al suc­cess of the un­der­tak­ing. And in that suc­cess Crock­ett saw vi­sions of po­lit­ical glo­ry open­ing be­fore him. I de­ter­mined, he said, “to quit the States un­til such time as hon­est and in­de­pen­dent men should again work their way to the head of the heap. And as I should prob­ably have some idle time on hand be­fore that state of af­fairs would be brought about, I promised to give the Tex­ans a help­ing hand on the high road to free­dom.”

He dressed him­self in a new deer­skin hunt­ing-​shirt, put on a foxskin cap with the tail hang­ing be­hind, shoul­dered his fa­mous ri­fle, and cru­el­ly leav­ing in the drea­ry cab­in his wife and chil­dren whom he cher­ished with an “ocean of love and af­fec­tion,” set out on foot up­on his per­ilous ad­ven­ture. A days’ jour­ney through the for­est brought him to the Mis­sis­sip­pi Riv­er. Here he took a steam­er down that ma­jes­tic stream to the mouth of the Arkansas Riv­er, which rolls its vast flood from re­gions then quite un­ex­plored in the far West. The stream was nav­iga­ble four­teen hun­dred miles from its mouth.

Arkansas was then but a Ter­ri­to­ry, two hun­dred and forty miles long and two hun­dred and twen­ty-​eight broad. The sparse­ly scat­tered pop­ula­tion of the Ter­ri­to­ry amount­ed to but about thir­ty thou­sand. Fol­low­ing up the wind­ings of the riv­er three hun­dred miles, one came to a clus­ter of a few strag­gling huts, called Lit­tle Rock, which con­sti­tutes now the cap­ital of the State.

Crock­ett as­cend­ed the riv­er in the steam­er, and, un­en­cum­bered with bag­gage, save his ri­fle, has­tened to a tav­ern which he saw at a lit­tle dis­tance from the shore, around which there was as­sem­bled quite a crowd of men. He had been so ac­cus­tomed to pub­lic tri­umphs that he sup­posed that they had as­sem­bled in hon­or of his ar­rival. “Strange as it may seem,” he says, “they took no more no­tice of me than if I had been Dick John­son, the wool-​grow­er. This took me some­what aback;” and he in­quired what was the mean­ing of the gath­er­ing.

He found that the peo­ple had been called to­geth­er to wit­ness the feats of a cel­ebrat­ed jug­gler and gam­bler. The name of Colonel Crock­ett had gone through the na­tion; and grad­ual­ly it be­came noised abroad that Colonel Crock­ett was in the crowd. “I wish I may be shot,” Crock­ett says, “if I wasn’t looked up­on as al­most as great a sight as Punch and Judy.”

He was in­vit­ed to a pub­lic din­ner that very day. As it took some time to cook the din­ner, the whole com­pa­ny went to a lit­tle dis­tance to shoot at a mark. All had heard of Crock­ett’s skill. Af­ter sev­er­al of the best sharp­shoot­ers had fired, with re­mark­able ac­cu­ra­cy, it came to Crock­ett’s turn. As­sum­ing an air of great care­less­ness, he raised his beau­ti­ful ri­fle, which he called Bet­sey, to his shoul­der, fired, and it so hap­pened that the bul­let struck ex­act­ly in the cen­tre of the bull’s-​eye. All were as­ton­ished, and so was Crock­ett him­self. But with an air of much in­dif­fer­ence he turned up­on his heel, say­ing, “There’s no mis­take in Bet­sey.”

One of the best marks­men in those parts, cha­grined at be­ing so beat­en, said, “Colonel, that must have been a chance shot.”

“I can do it,” Crock­ett replied, “five times out of six, any day in the week.”

“I knew,” he adds, in his au­to­bi­og­ra­phy, “it was not al­to­geth­er as cor­rect as it might be; but when a man sets about go­ing the big fig­ure, halfway mea­sures won’t an­swer no how.”

It was now pro­posed that there should be a sec­ond tri­al. Crock­ett was very re­luc­tant to con­sent to this, for he had noth­ing to gain, and ev­ery­thing to lose. But they in­sist­ed so ve­he­ment­ly that he had to yield. As what en­sued does not re­dound much to his cred­it, we will let him tell the sto­ry in his own lan­guage.

“So to it again we went. They were now put up­on their met­tle, and they fired much bet­ter than the first time; and it was what might be called pret­ty sharp shoot­ing. When it came to my turn, I squared my­self, and turn­ing to the prime shot, I gave him a know­ing nod, by way of show­ing my con­fi­dence; and says I, ‘Look out for the bull’s-​eye, stranger.’ I blazed away, and I wish I may be shot if I didn’t miss the tar­get. They ex­am­ined it all over, and could find nei­ther hair nor hide of my bul­let, and pro­nounced it a dead miss; when says I, ‘Stand aside and let me look, and I war­rant you I get on the right trail of the crit­ter,’ They stood aside, and I ex­am­ined the bull’s-​eye pret­ty par­tic­ular, and at length cried out, ‘Here it is; there is no snakes if it ha’n't fol­lowed the very track of the oth­er.’ They said it was ut­ter­ly im­pos­si­ble, but I in­sist­ed on their search­ing the hole, and I agreed to be stuck up as a mark my­self, if they did not find two bul­lets there. They searched for my sat­is­fac­tion, and sure enough it all come out just as I had told them; for I had picked up a bul­let that had been fired, and stuck it deep in­to the hole, with­out any one per­ceiv­ing it. They were all per­fect­ly sat­is­fied that fame had not made too great a flour­ish of trum­pets when speak­ing of me as a marks­man: and they all said they had enough of shoot­ing for that day, and they moved that we ad­journ to the tav­ern and liquor.”

The din­ner con­sist­ed of bear’s meat, veni­son, and wild turkey. They had an “up­roar­ious” time over their whiskey. Crock­ett made a coarse and vul­gar speech, which was nei­ther cred­itable to his head nor his heart. But it was re­ceived with great ap­plause.

The next morn­ing Crock­ett de­cid­ed to set out to cross the coun­try in a south­west di­rec­tion, to Ful­ton, on the up­per wa­ters of the Red Riv­er. The gen­tle­men fur­nished Crock­ett with a fine horse, and five of them de­cid­ed to ac­com­pa­ny him, as a mark of re­spect, to the Riv­er Washita, fifty miles from Lit­tle Rock. Crock­ett en­deav­ored to raise some re­cruits for Texas, but was un­suc­cess­ful. When they reached the Washita, they found a cler­gy­man, one of those bold, hardy pi­oneers of the wilder­ness, who through the wildest ad­ven­tures were dis­tribut­ing tracts and preach­ing the gospel in the re­motest ham­lets.

He was in a con­di­tion of great per­il. He had at­tempt­ed to ford the riv­er in the wrong place, and had reached a spot where he could not ad­vance any far­ther, and yet could not turn his horse round. With much dif­fi­cul­ty they suc­ceed­ed in ex­tri­cat­ing him, and in bring­ing him safe to the shore. Hav­ing bid adieu to his kind friends, who had es­cort­ed him thus far, Crock­ett crossed the riv­er, and in com­pa­ny with the cler­gy­man con­tin­ued his jour­ney, about twen­ty miles far­ther west to­ward a lit­tle set­tle­ment called Greenville. He found his new friend to be a very charm­ing com­pan­ion. In de­scrib­ing the ride, Crock­ett writes:

“We talked about pol­itics, re­li­gion, and na­ture, farm­ing, and bear-​hunt­ing, and the many bless­ings that an all-​boun­ti­ful Prov­idence has be­stowed up­on our hap­py coun­try. He con­tin­ued to talk up­on this sub­ject, trav­el­ling over the whole ground as it were, un­til his imag­ina­tion glowed, and his soul be­came full to over­flow­ing; and he checked his horse, and I stopped mine al­so, and a stream of elo­quence burst forth from his aged lips, such as I have sel­dom lis­tened to: it came from the over­flow­ing foun­tain of a pure and grate­ful heart. We were alone in the wilder­ness, but as he pro­ceed­ed, it seemed to me as if the tall trees bent their tops to lis­ten; that the moun­tain stream laughed out joy­ful­ly as it bound­ed on like some liv­ing thing that the fad­ing flow­ers of au­tumn smiled, and sent forth fresh­er fra­grance, as if con­scious that they would re­vive in spring; and even the ster­ile rocks seemed to be en­dued with some mys­te­ri­ous in­flu­ence. We were alone in the wilder­ness, but all things told me that God was there. The thought re­newed my strength and courage. I had left my coun­try, felt some­what like an out­cast, be­lieved that I had been ne­glect­ed and lost sight of. But I was now con­scious that there was still one watch­ful Eye over me; no mat­ter whether I dwelt in the pop­ulous cities, or thread­ed the path­less for­est alone; no mat­ter whether I stood in the high places among men, or made my soli­tary lair in the un­trod­den wild, that Eye was still up­on me. My very soul leaped joy­ful­ly at the thought. I nev­er felt so grate­ful in all my life. I nev­er loved my God so sin­cere­ly in all my life. I felt that I still had a friend.

“When the old man fin­ished, I found that my eyes were wet with tears. I ap­proached and pressed his hand, and thanked him, and says I, ‘Now let us take a drink.’ I set him the ex­am­ple, and he fol­lowed it, and in a style too that sat­is­fied me, that if he had ev­er be­longed to the tem­per­ance so­ci­ety, he had ei­ther re­nounced mem­ber­ship, or ob­tained a dis­pen­sa­tion. Hav­ing liquored, we pro­ceed­ed on our jour­ney, keep­ing a sharp look­out for mill-​seats and plan­ta­tions as we rode along.

“I left the wor­thy old man at Greenville, and sor­ry enough I was to part with him, for he talked a great deal, and he seemed to know a lit­tle about ev­ery­thing. He knew all about the his­to­ry of the coun­try; was well ac­quaint­ed with all the lead­ing men; knew where all the good lands lay in most of West­ern States.

“He was very cheer­ful and hap­py, though to all ap­pear­ances very poor. I thought that he would make a first-​rate agent for tak­ing up lands, and men­tioned it to him. He smiled, and point­ing above, said, ‘My wealth lies not in this world.’”

From Greenville, Crock­ett pressed on about fifty or six­ty miles through a coun­try in­ter­spersed withe forests and tree­less prairies, un­til he reached Ful­ton. He had a let­ter of in­tro­duc­tion to one of the promi­nent gen­tle­men here, and was re­ceived with marked dis­tinc­tion. Af­ter a short vis­it he dis­posed of his horse; he took a steam­er to de­scend the riv­er sev­er­al hun­dred miles to Natchi­toches, pro­nounced Naki­tosh, a small strag­gling vil­lage of eight hun­dred in­hab­itants, on the right bank of the Red Riv­er, about two hun­dred miles from its en­trance in­to the Mis­sis­sip­pi.

In de­scend­ing the riv­er there was a jug­gler on board, who per­formed many skil­ful jug­gling tricks. and by var­ious feats of gam­bling won much mon­ey from his dupes. Crock­ett was op­posed to gam­bling in all its forms. Be­com­ing ac­quaint­ed with the jug­gler and, find­ing him at heart a well-​mean­ing, good-​na­tured fel­low, he en­deav­ored to re­mon­strate with him up­on his evil prac­tices.

“I told him,” says Crock­ett, “that it was a bur­lesque on hu­man na­ture, that an able-​bod­ied man, pos­sessed of his full share of good sense, should vol­un­tar­ily de­base him­self, and be in­debt­ed for sub­sis­tence to such a piti­ful ar­ti­fice.

“‘But what’s to be done, Colonel?’ says he. ‘I’m in the slough of de­spond, up to the very chin. A miry and slip­pery path to trav­el.’

“‘Then hold your head up,’ says I, ‘be­fore the slough reach­es your lips.’

“‘But what’s the use?’ says he: ‘it’s ut­ter­ly im­pos­si­ble for me to wade through; and even if I could, I should be in such a dirty plight, that it would de­fy all the wa­ters in the Mis­sis­sip­pi to wash me clean again. No,’ he added in a de­spond­ing tone, ‘I should be like a live eel in a fry­ing-​pan, Colonel, sort of out of my el­ement, if I at­tempt­ed to live like an hon­est man at this time o’ day.’

“‘That I de­ny. It is nev­er too late to be­come hon­est,’ said I. ‘But even ad­mit what you say to be true–that you can­not live like an hon­est man–you have at least the next best thing in your pow­er, and no one can say nay to it.’

“‘And what is that?’

“‘Die like a brave one. And I know not whether, in the eyes of the world, a bril­liant death is not pre­ferred to an ob­scure life of rec­ti­tude. Most men are re­mem­bered as they died, and not as they lived. We gaze with ad­mi­ra­tion up­on the glo­ries of the set­ting sun, yet scarce­ly be­stow a pass­ing glance up­on its noon­day splen­dor.’

“‘You are right; but how is this to be done?’

“‘Ac­com­pa­ny me to Texas. Cut aloof from your de­grad­ing habits and as­so­ciates here, and, in fight­ing for the free­dom of the Tex­ans, re­gain your own.’

“The man seemed much moved. He caught up his gam­bling in­stru­ments, thrust them in­to his pock­et, with hasty strides tra­versed the floor two or three times, and then ex­claimed:

“‘By heav­en, I will try to be a man again. I will live hon­est­ly, or die brave­ly. I will go with you to Texas.’”

To con­firm him in his good res­olu­tion, Crock­ett “asked him to liquor.” At Natchi­toches, Crock­ett en­coun­tered an­oth­er very sin­gu­lar char­ac­ter. He was a re­mark­ably hand­some young man, of po­et­ic imag­ina­tion, a sweet singer, and with in­nu­mer­able scraps of po­et­ry and of song ev­er at his tongue’s end. Hon­ey-​trees, as they were called, were very abun­dant in Texas The prairies were al­most bound­less parter­res of the rich­est flow­ers, from which the bees made large quan­ti­ties of the most de­li­cious hon­ey. This they de­posit­ed in the hol­lows of trees. Not on­ly was the hon­ey valu­able, but the wax con­sti­tut­ed a very im­por­tant ar­ti­cle of com­merce in Mex­ico, and brought a high price, be­ing used for the im­mense can­dles which they burned in their church­es. The bee-​hunter, by prac­tice, ac­quired much skill in cours­ing the bees to their hives.

This man de­cid­ed to join Crock­ett and the jug­gler in their jour­ney over the vast prairies of Texas. Small, but very strong and tough Mex­ican ponies, called mus­tangs, were very cheap. They were found wild, in droves of thou­sands, graz­ing on the prairies. The three ad­ven­tur­ers mount­ed their ponies, and set out on their jour­ney due west, a dis­tance of one hun­dred and twen­ty miles, to Nacog­doches. Their route was along a mere trail, which was called the old Span­ish road. It led over vast prairies, where there was no path, and where the bee-​hunter was their guide, and through forests where their course was marked on­ly by blazed trees.

The bee-​hunter, speak­ing of the state of so­ci­ety in Texas, said that at San Fe­lipe he had sat down with a small par­ty at the break­fast-​ta­ble, where eleven of the com­pa­ny had fled from the States charged with the crime of mur­der. So ac­cus­tomed were the in­hab­itants to the ap­pear­ance of fugi­tives from jus­tice, that when­ev­er a stranger came among them, they took it for grant­ed that he had com­mit­ted some crime which ren­dered it nec­es­sary for him to take refuge be­yond the grasp of his coun­try’s laws.

They reached Nacog­doches with­out any spe­cial ad­ven­ture. It was a flour­ish­ing lit­tle Mex­ican town of about one thou­sand in­hab­itants, sit­uat­ed in a ro­man­tic dell, about six­ty miles west of the Riv­er Sabine. The Mex­icans and the In­di­ans were very near­ly on an in­tel­lec­tu­al and so­cial equal­ity. Groups of In­di­ans, harm­less and friend­ly, were ev­er saun­ter­ing through the streets of the lit­tle town.

Colonel Crock­ett’s horse had be­come lame on the jour­ney. He ob­tained an­oth­er, and, with his feet near­ly touch­ing the ground as he be­strode the lit­tle an­imal, the par­ty re­sumed its long and weary jour­ney, di­rect­ing their course two or three hun­dred miles far­ther south­west through the very heart of Texas to San An­to­nio. They fre­quent­ly en­coun­tered vast ex­pans­es of cane­brakes; such canes as North­ern boys use for fish­ing-​poles. There is one on the banks of Caney Creek, sev­en­ty miles in length, with scarce­ly a tree to be seen for the whole dis­tance. There was gen­er­al­ly a trail cut through these, bare­ly wide enough for a sin­gle mus­tang to pass. The reeds were twen­ty or thir­ty feet high, and so slen­der that, hav­ing no sup­port over the path, they drooped a lit­tle in­ward and in­ter­min­gled their tops. Thus a very sin­gu­lar and beau­ti­ful canopy was formed, be­neath which the trav­ellers moved along shel­tered from the rays of a Tex­an sun.

As they were emerg­ing from one of these arched av­enues, they saw three black wolves jog­ging along very leisure­ly in front of them, but at too great a dis­tance to be reached by a ri­fle-​bul­let. Wild turkeys were very abun­dant, and vast droves of wild hors­es were crop­ping the herbage of the most beau­ti­ful and rich­est pas­tures to be found on earth. Im­mense herds of buf­faloes were al­so seen.

“These sights,” says Crock­ett, “awak­ened the rul­ing pas­sion strong with­in me, and I longed to have a hunt on a large scale. For though I had killed many bears and deer in my time, I had nev­er brought down a buf­fa­lo, and so I told my friends. But they tried to dis­suade me from it, telling me that I would cer­tain­ly lose my way, and per­haps per­ish; for though it ap­peared a gar­den to the eye, it was still a wilder­ness. I said lit­tle more up­on the sub­ject un­til we crossed the Trinidad Riv­er. But ev­ery mile we trav­elled, I found the temp­ta­tion grew stronger and stronger.”

The night af­ter cross­ing the Trinidad Riv­er they were so for­tu­nate as to come across the hut of a poor wom­an, where they took shel­ter un­til the next morn­ing. They were here joined by two oth­er chance trav­ellers, who must in­deed have been rough spec­imens of hu­man­ity. Crock­ett says that though he had of­ten seen men who had not ad­vanced far over the line of civ­iliza­tion, these were the coars­est sam­ples he had ev­er met.

One proved to be an old pi­rate, about fifty years of age. He was tall, bony, and in as­pect seemed scarce­ly hu­man. The shag­gy hair of his whiskers and beard cov­ered near­ly his whole face. He had on a sailor’s round jack­et and tarpaulin hat. The deep scar, ap­par­ent­ly of a sword cut, de­formed his fore­head, and an­oth­er sim­ilar scar was on the back of one of his hands. His com­pan­ion was a young In­di­an, wild as the wolves, bare­head­ed, and with scanty deer­skin dress.

Ear­ly the next morn­ing they all re­sumed their jour­ney, the two strangers fol­low­ing on foot. Their path led over the smooth and tree­less prairie, as beau­ti­ful in its ver­dure and its flow­ers as the most cul­ti­vat­ed park could pos­si­bly be. About noon they stopped to re­fresh their hors­es and dine be­neath a clus­ter of trees in the open prairie. They had built their fire, were cook­ing their game, and were all seat­ed up­on the grass, chat­ting very so­cia­bly, when the bee-​hunter saw a bee, which in­di­cat­ed that a hive of hon­ey might be found not far dis­tant. He leaped up­on his mus­tang, and with­out say­ing a word, “start­ed off like mad,” and scoured along the prairie. “We watched him,” says Crock­ett, “un­til he seemed no larg­er than a rat, and fi­nal­ly dis­ap­peared in the dis­tance.”