David Crockett

CHAPTER VI.

The Camp and the Cab­in.

De­plorable Con­di­tion of the Army.–Its wan­der­ings.–Crock­ett’s Benev­olence.–Cru­el Treat­ment of the In­di­ans.–A Gleam of Good Luck.–The Joy­ful Feast.–Crock­ett’s Trade with the In­di­an.–Vis­it to the Old Bat­tle­field.–Bold Ad­ven­ture of Crock­ett.–His Ar­rival Home.–Death of his Wife.–Sec­ond Mar­riage.–Rest­less­ness.– Ex­plor­ing Tour.–Wild Ad­ven­tures.–Dan­ger­ous Sick­ness.–Re­moval to the West.–His New Home.

The army, far away in the wilds of South­ern Al­aba­ma, on the banks of the al­most un­known Chat­ta­hoochee, with­out pro­vi­sions, and with leagues of un­ex­plored wilder­ness around, found it­self in tru­ly a de­plorable con­di­tion. The sol­diers had hoped to find, in the In­di­an vil­lage, stores of beans and corn, and quan­ti­ties of pre­served game. In the im­po­tence of their dis­ap­point­ment they ap­plied the torch, and laid the lit­tle vil­lage in ash­es.

A coun­cil was held, and it was deemed best to di­vide their forces. Ma­jor Childs took one-​half of the army and re­traced their steps west­ward, di­rect­ing their course to­ward Ba­ton Rouge, where they hoped to find Gen­er­al Jack­son with a por­tion of the army with which he was re­turn­ing from New Or­leans. The oth­er di­vi­sion, un­der Ma­jor Rus­sel, pressed for­ward, as rapid­ly as pos­si­ble, near­ly north, aim­ing for Fort De­catur, on the Tal­lapoosa Riv­er, where they ex­pect­ed to find shel­ter and pro­vi­sions. Crock­ett ac­com­pa­nied Ma­jor Rus­sel’s par­ty. In­di­an sagac­ity was now in great req­ui­si­tion. The friend­ly sav­ages led the way through scenes of dif­fi­cul­ty and en­tan­gle­ment where, but for their aid, the troops might all have per­ished. So great was the des­ti­tu­tion of food that the sol­diers were per­mit­ted to stray, al­most at plea­sure, on ei­ther side of the line of march. Hap­py was the man who could shoot a rac­coon or a squir­rel, or even the small­est bird. Im­plic­it con­fi­dence was placed in the guid­ance of the friend­ly In­di­ans, and the army fol­lowed in sin­gle file, along the nar­row trail which the In­di­ans trod be­fore them.

Crock­ett, in this march, had ac­quired so much the con­fi­dence of the of­fi­cers that he seems to have en­joyed quite un­lim­it­ed li­cense. He went where he pleased and did what he would. Al­most in­vari­ably at night, keep­ing pace with the army, he would bring in some small game, a bird or a squir­rel, and fre­quent­ly sev­er­al of these puny an­imals. It was a rule, when night came, for all the hunters to throw down what they had killed in one pile. This was then di­vid­ed among the mess­es as eq­ui­tably as pos­si­ble.

One night, Crock­ett re­turned emp­ty-​hand­ed. He had killed noth­ing, and he was very hun­gry. But there was a sick man in his mess, who was suf­fer­ing far more than he. Crock­ett, with his in­vari­able un­selfish­ness and gen­eros­ity, for­got his own hunger in his so­lic­itude for his sick com­rade. He went to the fire of Cap­tain Cowen, who was com­man­dant of the com­pa­ny to which Crock­ett be­longed, and told him his sto­ry. Cap­tain Cowen was broil­ing, for his sup­per, the giz­zard of a turkey. He told Crock­ett that the turkey was all that had fall­en to the share of his com­pa­ny that night, and that the bird had al­ready been di­vid­ed, in very small frag­ments, among the sick. There was noth­ing left for Crock­ett’s friend.

On this march the army was di­vid­ed in­to mess­es of eight or ten men, who cooked and ate their food to­geth­er. This led Crock­ett to de­cide that he and his mess would sep­arate them­selves from the rest of the army, and make a small and in­de­pen­dent band. The In­di­an scouts, well armed and very wary, took the lead. They kept sev­er­al miles in ad­vance of the main body of the troops, that they might give time­ly warn­ing should they en­counter any dan­ger. Crock­ett and his mess kept close af­ter them, fol­low­ing their trail, and leav­ing the army one or two miles be­hind.

One day the scouts came across nine In­di­ans. We are not in­formed whether they were friends or en­emies, whether they were hunters or war­riors, whether they were men, wom­en, or chil­dren, whether they were in their wig­wams or wan­der­ing through the for­est, whether they were all to­geth­er or were found sep­arate­ly: we are sim­ply told that they were all shot down. The cir­cum­stances of the case are such, that the prob­abil­ities are very strong that they were shot as a wolf or a bear would be shot, at sight, with­out ask­ing any ques­tions. The next day the scouts found a frail en­camp­ment where there were three In­di­ans. They shot them all.

The suf­fer­ings of the army, as it toiled along through these vast realms of un­known rivers and for­est glooms, and marsh­es and wide-​spread, flow­er-​be­span­gled prairies, be­came more and more se­vere. Game was very scarce. For three days, Crock­ett’s par­ty killed bare­ly enough to sus­tain life. He writes:

“At last we all be­gan to get near­ly ready to give up the ghost, and lie down and die, for we had no prospect of pro­vi­sion, and we knowed we couldn’t go much far­ther with­out it.”

While in this con­di­tion they came up­on one of those wide and beau­ti­ful prairies which fre­quent­ly em­bel­lish the land­scape of the South and the West This plain was about six miles in width, smooth as a floor, and wav­ing with tall grass and the most bril­li­aint­ly col­ored flow­ers. It was bor­dered with a for­est of lux­uri­ant growth, but not a tree dot­ted its sur­face. They came up­on a trail lead­ing through the tall, thick grass. Crock­ett’s prac­tised eye saw at once that it was not a trail made by hu­man foot-​steps, but the nar­row path along which deer strolled and turkeys hob­bled in their move­ment across the field from for­est to for­est.

Fol­low­ing this trail, they soon came to a creek of slug­gish wa­ter. The low­lands on each side were wav­ing with a rank growth of wild rye, pre­sent­ing a very green and beau­ti­ful as­pect. The men were all mount­ed, as in­deed was near­ly the whole army. By graz­ing and brows­ing, the hors­es, as they moved slow­ly along at a foot-​pace, kept in com­fort­able flesh. This rye-​field pre­sent­ed the most ad­mirable pas­turage for the hors­es. Crock­ett and his com­rades dis­mount­ed, and turned the an­imals loose. There was no dan­ger of their stray­ing far in so fat a field.

Crock­ett and an­oth­er man, Van­zant by name, leav­ing the hors­es to feed, pushed across the plain to the for­est, in search of some food for them­selves They wan­dered for some time, and found noth­ing. At length, Crock­ett es­pied a squir­rel on the limb of a tall tree. He shot at the an­imal and wound­ed it but it suc­ceed­ed in creep­ing in­to a small hole in the tree, thir­ty feet from the ground. There was not a limb for that dis­tance to aid in climb­ing. Still the wants of the par­ty were such that Crock­ett climbed the tree to get the squir­rel, and felt that he had gained quite a trea­sure.

“I shouldn’t re­late such small mat­ters,” he writes, “on­ly to show what lengths a hun­gry man will go to, to get some­thing to eat.”

Soon af­ter, he killed two more squir­rels. Just as he was reload­ing his gun, a large flock of fat turkeys rose from the marshy banks of the creek along which they were wan­der­ing, and fly­ing but a short dis­tance, re­light­ed. Van­zant crept for­ward, and aim­ing at a large gob­bler, fired, and brought him down. The flock im­me­di­ate­ly flew back to near the spot where Crock­ett stood. He lev­elled his ri­fle, took de­lib­er­ate aim, and an­oth­er fine turkey fell. The flock then dis­ap­peared.

The two hunters made the for­est re­sound with shouts of tri­umph. They had two large, fat turkeys, which would be looked at wist­ful­ly up­on any gour­mand’s ta­ble, and for side-​dish­es they had three squir­rels. Thus they were pre­pared for tru­ly a thanks­giv­ing feast. Hasti­ly they re­turned with their trea­sure, when they learned that the oth­ers of their par­ty had found a bee-​tree, that is, a tree where a swarm of bees had tak­en lodg­ment, and were lay­ing in their win­ter stores. They cut down the tree with their hatch­ets, and ob­tained an am­ple sup­ply of wild hon­ey. They all felt that they had in­deed fall­en up­on a vein of good luck.

It was but a short dis­tance from the creek to the gi­gan­tic for­est, ris­ing sub­lime­ly in its lux­uri­ance, with scarce­ly an en­cum­ber­ing shrub of un­der­growth. They en­tered the edge of the for­est, built a hot fire, roast­ed their game, and, while their hors­es were en­joy­ing the rich­est of pas­turage, they, with their keen ap­petites, en­joyed a more de­li­cious feast than far-​famed Del­moni­co ev­er pro­vid­ed for his epi­cure­an guests.

The hap­py par­ty, re­joic­ing in the present, and tak­ing no thought for the mor­row, spent the night in this camp of feast­ing. The next morn­ing they were re­luc­tant to leave such an invit­ing hunt­ing-​ground. Crock­ett and Van­zant again took to their ri­fles, and strolled in­to the for­est in search of game. Soon they came across a fine buck, which seemed to have tar­ried be­hind to watch the foe, while the rest of the herd, of which he was pro­tec­tor, had tak­en to flight. The beau­ti­ful crea­ture, with erect head and spread­ing antlers, gal­lant­ly stop­ping to in­ves­ti­gate the dan­ger to which his fam­ily was ex­posed, would have moved the sym­pa­thies of any one but a pro­fessed hunter. Crock­ett’s bul­let struck him, wound­ed him severe­ly, and he limped away. Hot­ly the two hunters pur­sued. They came to a large tree which had been blown down, and was part­ly de­cayed. An im­mense griz­zly bear crept growl­ing from the hol­low of this tree, and plunged in­to the for­est. It was in vain to pur­sue him, with­out dogs to re­tard his flight. They how­ev­er soon over­took the wound­ed buck, and shot him. With this trea­sure of veni­son up­on their shoul­ders, they had but just re­turned to their camp when the main body of the army came up. The game which Crock­ett had tak­en, and up­on which they had feast­ed so abun­dant­ly, if di­vid­ed among twelve hun­dred men, would not have af­ford­ed a mouth­ful apiece.

The army was in the most de­plorable con­di­tion of weak­ness and hunger. Ere long they reached the Coosa, and fol­lowed up its east­ern bank. About twen­ty miles above the spot where they struck the riv­er there was a small mil­itary post, called Fort De­catur. They hoped to find some food there. And yet, in that re­mote, al­most in­ac­ces­si­ble sta­tion, they could hard­ly ex­pect to meet with any­thing like a sup­ply for twelve hun­dred half-​fam­ished men.

Up­on reach­ing the riv­er, Crock­ett took a ca­noe and pad­dled across. On the oth­er shore he found an In­di­an. In­stead of shoot­ing him, he much more sen­si­bly en­tered in­to re­la­tions of friend­ly trade with the sav­age. The In­di­an had a lit­tle house­hold in his soli­tary wig­wam, and a small quan­ti­ty of corn in store. Crock­ett wore a large hat. Tak­ing it from his head, he of­fered the In­di­an a sil­ver dol­lar if he would fill it with corn. But the lit­tle bit of sil­ver, with enig­mat­ical char­ac­ters stamped up­on it, was worth noth­ing to the In­di­an. He de­clined the of­fer. Speak­ing a lit­tle bro­ken En­glish, he in­quired, “You got any pow­der? You got any bul­lets?” Crock­ett told him he had. He prompt­ly replied, “Me will swap my corn for pow­der and bul­lets.”

Ea­ger­ly the man gave a hat­ful of corn for ten bul­lets and ten charges of pow­der. He then of­fered an­oth­er hat­ful at the same price. Crock­ett took off his hunt­ing-​shirt, tied it up so as to make a sort of bag, in­to which he poured his two hat­fuls of corn. With this great trea­sure he joy­ful­ly pad­dled across the stream to re­join his com­pan­ions. It is pleas­ant to think that the poor In­di­an was not shot, that his wig­wam was not burned over his head, and that he was left with means to pro­vide his wife and chil­dren with many lux­uri­ous meals.

The army reached Fort De­catur. One sin­gle meal con­sumed all the pro­vi­sions which the gar­ri­son could by any pos­si­bil­ity spare. They had now en­tered up­on a rough, hilly, bro­ken coun­try. The hors­es found but lit­tle food, and be­gan to give out. About fifty miles far­ther up the Coosa Riv­er there was an­oth­er mil­itary sta­tion, in the lone­ly wilds, called Fort William. Still starv­ing, and with tot­ter­ing hors­es, they toiled on. Parched corn, and but a scanty sup­ply of that, was now al­most their on­ly sub­sis­tence.

They reached the fort. One ra­tion of pork and one ra­tion of flour were mer­ci­ful­ly giv­en them. It was all which could be spared. To re­main where they were was cer­tain star­va­tion. Forty miles above them on the same stream was Fort Strother. Sad­ly they toiled along. The skele­ton hors­es dropped be­neath their rid­ers, and were left, sad­dled and bri­dled, for the vul­tures and the wolves. On their route to Fort Strother they passed di­rect­ly by the an­cient In­di­an fort of Tal­lade­ga. It will be re­mem­bered that a ter­ri­ble bat­tle had been fought here by Gen­er­al Jack­son with the In­di­ans, on the 7th of De­cem­ber, 1813. In the car­nage of that bloody day near­ly five hun­dred In­di­ans fell. Those who es­caped scat­tered far and wide. A few of them sought refuge in dis­tant Flori­da.

The bod­ies of the slain were left un­buried. Slow­ly the flesh dis­ap­peared from the bones, ei­ther de­voured by wild beasts or de­com­posed by the ac­tion of the at­mo­sphere. The field, as now vis­it­ed, pre­sent­ed an ap­palling as­pect. Crock­ett writes:

“We went through the old bat­tle-​ground, and it looked like a great gourd-​patch. The skulls of the In­di­ans who were killed, still lay scat­tered all about. Many of their frames were still per­fect, as their bones had not sep­arat­ed.”

As they were thus de­spair­ing­ly tot­ter­ing along, they came across a nar­row In­di­an trail, with fresh foot­marks, in­di­cat­ing that moc­casined In­di­ans had re­cent­ly passed along. It shows how lit­tle they had cause to fear from the In­di­ans, that Crock­ett, en­tire­ly alone, should have fol­lowed that trail, trust­ing that it would lead him to some In­di­an vil­lage, where he could hope to buy some more corn. He was not de­ceived in his ex­pec­ta­tion. Af­ter thread­ing the nar­row and wind­ing path about five miles, he came to a clus­ter of In­di­an wig­wams. Bold­ly he en­tered the lit­tle vil­lage, with­out ap­par­ent­ly the slight­est ap­pre­hen­sion that he should meet with any un­friend­ly re­cep­tion.

He was en­tire­ly at the mer­cy of the sav­ages Even if he were mur­dered, it would nev­er be known by whom. And if it were known, the starv­ing army, miles away, press­ing along in its flight, was in no con­di­tion to send a de­tach­ment to en­deav­or to avenge the deed. The sav­ages re­ceived him as though he had been one of their own kith and kin, and read­ily ex­changed corn with him, for pow­der and bul­lets. He then re­turned, but did not over­take the rest of the army un­til late in the night.

The next morn­ing they were so for­tu­nate as to en­counter a de­tach­ment of Unit­ed States troops on the march to Mo­bile. These troops, hav­ing just com­menced their jour­ney, were well sup­plied; and they lib­er­al­ly dis­tribut­ed their corn and pro­vi­sions. Here Crock­ett found his youngest broth­er, who had en­list­ed for the cam­paign. There were al­so in the band many oth­ers of his old friends and neigh­bors. The suc­ceed­ing day, the weary troops, much re­freshed, reached a point on the Riv­er Coosa op­po­site Fort Strother, and cross­ing the stream, found there shel­ter and plen­ty of pro­vi­sions.

We know not, and do not care to know, who was re­spon­si­ble for this mil­itary move­ment, which seems to us now as sense­less as it was cru­el and dis­as­trous. But it is thus that poor hu­man­ity has ev­er gone blun­der­ing on, dis­play­ing but lit­tle wis­dom in its af­fairs. Here Crock­ett had per­mis­sion to vis­it his home, though he still owed the coun­try a month of ser­vice. In his ex­ceed­ing rude, un­pol­ished style which pic­tures the man, he writes:

“Once more I was safe­ly land­ed at home with my wife and chil­dren. I found them all well and do­ing well; and though I was on­ly a rough sort of back­woods­man, they seemed mighty glad to see me, how­ev­er lit­tle the qual­ity folks might sup­pose it. For I do reck­on we love as hard in the back­wood coun­try as any peo­ple in the whole cre­ation.

“But I had been home on­ly a few days, when we re­ceived or­ders to start again, and go on to the Black War­rior and Ca­haula rivers, to see if there were no In­di­ans there. I know’d well enough there was none, and I wasn’t will­ing to trust my craw any more where there was nei­ther any fight­ing to do, nor any­thing to go on. So I agreed to give a young man, who want­ed to go, the bal­ance of my wages, if he would serve out my time, which was about a month.

“He did so. And when they re­turned, sure enough they hadn’t seen an In­di­an any more than if they had been, all the time, chop­ping wood in my clear­ing. This closed my ca­reer as a war­rior; and I am glad of it; for I like life now a heap bet­ter than I did then. And I am glad all over that I lived to see these times, which I should not have done if I had kept fool­ing along in war, and got used up at it. When I say I am glad, I just mean that I am glad that I am alive, for there is a con­found­ed heap of things I ain’t glad of at all.”

When Crock­ett wrote the above he was a mem­ber of Congress, and a very earnest politi­cian. He was much op­posed to the mea­sure of Pres­ident Jack­son in re­mov­ing the de­posits from the Unit­ed States Bank–a move­ment which great­ly ag­itat­ed the whole coun­try at that time. In speak­ing of things of which he was not glad, he writes:

“I ain’t glad, for ex­am­ple, that the Gov­ern­ment moved the de­posits; and if my mil­itary glo­ry should take such a turn as to make me Pres­ident af­ter the Gen­er­al’s time, I will move them back. Yes, I the Gov­ern­ment, will take the re­spon­si­bil­ity, and move them back again. If I don’t I wish I may be shot.”

The hard­ships of war had blight­ed Crock­ett’s en­thu­si­asm for wild ad­ven­tures, and had very con­sid­er­ably sobered him. He re­mained at home for two years, dili­gent­ly at work up­on his farm. The bat­tle of New Or­leans was fought. The war with Eng­land closed, and peace was made with the poor In­di­ans, who, by British in­trigue, had been goad­ed to the dis­as­trous fight. Death came to the cab­in of Crock­ett; and his faith­ful wife, the ten­der moth­er of his chil­dren, was tak­en from him. We can­not re­frain from quot­ing his own ac­count of this event as it does much hon­or to his heart.

“In this time I met with the hard­est tri­al which ev­er falls to the lot of man. Death, that cru­el lev­eller of all dis­tinc­tions, to whom the prayers and tears of hus­bands, and even of help­less in­fan­cy, are ad­dressed in vain, en­tered my hum­ble cot­tage, and tore from my chil­dren an af­fec­tion­ate, good moth­er, and from me a ten­der and lov­ing wife. It is a scene long gone by, and one which it would be sup­posed I had al­most for­got­ten. Yet when I turn my mem­ory back up­on it, it seems but as the work of yes­ter­day.

“It was the do­ing of the Almighty, whose ways are al­ways right, though we some­times think they fall heav­ily on us. And as painful as even yet is the re­mem­brance of her suf­fer­ings, and the loss sus­tained by my lit­tle chil­dren and my­self, yet I have no wish to lift up the voice of com­plaint. I was left with three chil­dren. The two el­dest were sons, the youngest a daugh­ter, and at that time a mere in­fant. It ap­peared to me, at that mo­ment, that my sit­ua­tion was the worst in the world.

“I couldn’t bear the thought of scat­ter­ing my chil­dren; and so I got my youngest broth­er, who was al­so mar­ried, and his fam­ily, to live with me. They took as good care of my chil­dren as they well could; but yet it wasn’t all like the care of a moth­er. And though their com­pa­ny was to me, in ev­ery re­spect, like that of a broth­er and sis­ter, yet it fell far short of be­ing like that of a wife. So I came to the con­clu­sion that it wouldn’t do, but that I must have an­oth­er wife.”

One sees strik­ing­ly, in the above quo­ta­tion, the soft­en­ing ef­fect of af­flic­tion on the hu­man heart There was a wid­ow in the neigh­bor­hood, a very wor­thy wom­an, who had lost her hus­band in the war. She had two chil­dren, a son and a daugh­ter, both quite young. She owned a snug lit­tle farm, and be­ing a very ca­pa­ble wom­an, was get­ting along quite com­fort­ably. Crock­ett de­cid­ed that he should make a good step-​fa­ther to her chil­dren, and she a good step-​moth­er for his. The courtship was in ac­cor­dance with the most ap­proved style of coun­try love-​mak­ing. It proved to be a con­ge­nial mar­riage. The two fam­ilies came very har­mo­nious­ly to­geth­er, and in their low­ly hut en­joyed peace and con­tent­ment such as fre­quent­ly is not found in more am­bi­tious homes.

But the wan­der­ing propen­si­ty was in­her­ent in the very na­ture of Crock­ett. He soon tired of the monotony of a farmer’s life, and longed for change. A few months af­ter his mar­riage he set out, with three of his neigh­bors, all well mount­ed, on an ex­plor­ing tour in­to Cen­tral Al­aba­ma, hop­ing to find new homes there. Tak­ing a souther­ly course, they crossed the Ten­nessee Riv­er, and strik­ing the up­per wa­ters of the Black War­rior, fol­lowed down that stream a dis­tance of about two hun­dred miles from their start­ing-​point, till they came near to the place where Tuscaloosa, the cap­ital of the State, now stands.

This re­gion was then al­most an un­bro­ken wilder­ness. But dur­ing the war Crock­ett had fre­quent­ly tra­versed it, and was fa­mil­iar with its gen­er­al char­ac­ter. On the route they came to the hut of a man who was a com­rade of Crock­ett in the Flori­da cam­paign. They spent a day with the re­tired sol­dier, and all went out in the woods to­geth­er to hunt. Fra­zier un­for­tu­nate­ly stepped up­on a ven­omous snake, par­tial­ly cov­ered with leaves. The rep­tile struck its dead­ly fangs in­to his leg. The ef­fect was in­stan­ta­neous and aw­ful. They car­ried the wound­ed man, with his bloat­ed and throb­bing limb, back to the hut. Here such reme­dies were ap­plied as back­woods med­ical sci­ence sug­gest­ed; but it was ev­ident that many weeks would elapse ere the man could move, even should he even­tu­al­ly re­cov­er. Sad­ly they were con­strained to leave their suf­fer­ing com­pan­ion there. What be­came of him is not record­ed.

The three oth­ers, Crock­ett, Robin­son, and Rich, con­tin­ued their jour­ney. Their route led them through a very fer­tile and beau­ti­ful re­gion, called Jones’s Val­ley. Sev­er­al em­igrants had pen­etrat­ed and reared their log huts up­on its rich and bloom­ing mead­ows.

When they reached the spot where the cap­ital of the State now stands, with its spa­cious streets, its pub­lic ed­ifices, its halls of learn­ing, its church­es, and its re­fined and cul­ti­vat­ed so­ci­ety, they found on­ly the si­lence, soli­tude, and gloom of the wilder­ness. With their hatch­ets they con­struct­ed a rude camp to shel­ter them from the night air and the heavy dew. It was open in front. Here they built their camp-​fire, whose cheer­ful glow il­lu­mined the for­est far and wide, and which con­vert­ed mid­night glooms in­to al­most mid­day ra­di­ance. The hors­es were hob­bled and turned out to graze on a lux­uri­ant mead­ow. It was sup­posed that the an­imals, weary of the day’s jour­ney, and find­ing abun­dant pas­turage, would not stray far. The trav­ellers cooked their sup­per, and throw­ing them­selves up­on their couch of leaves, en­joyed that sound sleep which fa­tigue, health, and com­fort give.

When they awoke in the morn­ing the hors­es were all gone. By ex­am­in­ing the trail it seemed that they had tak­en the back-​track in search of their homes. Crock­ett, who was the most vig­or­ous and ath­let­ic of the three, leav­ing Robin­son and Rich in the camp, set out in pur­suit of the run­aways. It was a rough and drea­ry path he had to tread. There was no com­fort­able road to tra­verse, but a mere path through for­est, bog, and ravine, which, at times, it was dif­fi­cult to dis­cern. He had hills to climb, creeks to ford, swamps to wade through. Hour af­ter hour he pressed on, but the hors­es could walk faster than he could. There was noth­ing in their foot-​prints which in­di­cat­ed that he was ap­proach­ing any near­er to them.

At last, when night came, and Crock­ett judged that he had walked fifty miles, he gave up the chase as hope­less. For­tu­nate­ly he reached the cab­in of a set­tler, where he re­mained un­til morn­ing. A rapid walk, al­most a run, of fifty miles in one day, is a very se­vere op­er­ation even for the most hardy of men. When Crock­ett awoke, af­ter his night’s sleep, he found him­self so lame that he could scarce­ly move. He was, how­ev­er, anx­ious to get back with his dis­cour­ag­ing re­port to his com­pan­ions. He there­fore set out, and hob­bled slow­ly and painful­ly along, hop­ing that ex­er­cise would grad­ual­ly loosen his stiff­ened joints.

But, mile af­ter mile, he grew worse rather than bet­ter. His head be­gan to ache very severe­ly. A burn­ing fever spread through his veins. He tot­tered in his walk, and his ri­fle seemed so heavy that he could scarce­ly bear its weight. He was toil­ing through a dark and gloomy ravine, damp and cold, and thrown in­to shade by the thick fo­liage of the over­hang­ing trees. So far as he knew, no hu­man habi­ta­tion was near. Night was ap­proach­ing. He could go no far­ther. He had no food; but he did not need any, for a death­ly nau­sea op­pressed him. Ut­ter­ly ex­haust­ed, he threw him­self down up­on the grass and with­ered leaves, on a small dry mound formed by the roots of a large tree.

Crock­ett had no wish to die. He clung very tena­cious­ly to life, and yet he was very ap­pre­hen­sive that then and there he was to linger through a few hours of pain, and then die, leav­ing his un­buried body to be de­voured by wild beasts, and his friends prob­ably for­ev­er ig­no­rant of his fate. Con­sumed by fever, and ag­itat­ed by these painful thoughts, he re­mained for an hour or two, when he heard the sound of ap­proach­ing foot­steps and of hu­man voic­es. His sen­si­bil­ities were so stu­pe­fied by his sick­ness that these sounds ex­cit­ed but lit­tle emo­tion.

Soon three or four In­di­ans made their ap­pear­ance walk­ing along the nar­row trail in sin­gle file. They saw the pros­trate form of the poor, sick white man, and im­me­di­ate­ly gath­ered around him. The ri­fle of Crock­ett, and the pow­der and bul­lets which be had, were, to these In­di­ans, ar­ti­cles of al­most in­es­timable val­ue. One blow of the tom­ahawk would send the help­less man to realms where ri­fles and am­mu­ni­tion were no longer need­ed, and his price­less trea­sures would fall in­to their hands. In­deed, it was not nec­es­sary even to strike that blow. They had but to pick up the ri­fle, and un­buck­le the belt which con­tained the pow­der-​horn and bul­let-​pouch, and leave the dy­ing man to his fate.

But these sav­ages, who had nev­er read our Saviour’s beau­ti­ful para­ble of the good Samar­itan, act­ed the Samar­itan’s part to the white man whom they found in ut­ter help­less­ness and des­ti­tu­tion. They kneeled around him, try­ing to min­is­ter to his wants. One of them had a wa­ter­mel­on. He cut from it a slice of the rich and juicy fruit, and en­treat­ed him to eat it. But his stom­ach re­ject­ed even that del­icate food.

They then, by very ex­pres­sive signs, told him that if he did not take some nour­ish­ment he would die and be buried there–“a thing,” Crock­ett writes, “I was con­found­ed­ly afraid of, my­self.” Crock­ett in­quired how far it was to any house. They sig­ni­fied to him, by signs, that there was a white man’s cab­in about a mile and a half from where they then were, and urged him to let them con­duct him to that house. He rose to make the at­tempt. But he was so weak that he could with dif­fi­cul­ty stand, and un­sup­port­ed could not walk a step.

One of these kind In­di­ans of­fered to go with him; and re­liev­ing Crock­ett of the bur­den of his ri­fle, and with his strong arm sup­port­ing and half car­ry­ing him, at length suc­ceed­ed in get­ting him to the log hut of the pi­oneer. The shades of night were falling. The sick man was so far gone that it seemed to him that he could scarce­ly move an­oth­er step. A wom­an came to the door of the low­ly hut and re­ceived them with a wom­an’s sym­pa­thy. There was a cheer­ful fire blaz­ing in one cor­ner, giv­ing quite a pleas­ing as­pect to the room. In an­oth­er cor­ner there was a rude bed, with bed-​cloth­ing of the skins of an­imals. Crock­ett’s bene­fac­tor laid him ten­der­ly up­on the bed, and leav­ing him in the charge of his coun­try­wom­an, bade him adieu, and has­tened away to over­take his com­pan­ions.

What a dif­fer­ent world would this be from what it has been, did the spir­it of kind­ness, man­ifest­ed by this poor In­di­an, uni­ver­sal­ly an­imate hu­man hearts!

“O broth­er man! fold to thy heart thy broth­er: Where pity dwells the peace of God is there; To wor­ship right­ly is to love each oth­er, Each smile a hymn, each kind­ly word a prayer.”

The wom­an’s hus­band was, at the time, ab­sent. But she care­ful­ly nursed her pa­tient, prepar­ing for him some sooth­ing herb-​tea. Delir­ium came, and for sev­er­al hours, Crock­ett, in a state of un­con­scious­ness, dwelt in the land of trou­bled dreams. The next morn­ing he was a lit­tle more com­fort­able, but still in a high fever, and of­ten deliri­ous.

It so hap­pened that two white men, on an ex­plor­ing tour, as they passed along the trail, met the In­di­ans, who in­formed them that one of their sick coun­try­men was at a set­tler’s cab­in at but a few miles’ dis­tance. With hu­man­ity char­ac­ter­is­tic of a new and sparse­ly set­tled coun­try they turned aside to vis­it him. They proved to be old ac­quain­tances of Crock­ett. He was so very anx­ious to get back to the camp where he had left his com­pan­ions, and who, know­ing noth­ing of his fate, must think it very strange that he had thus de­sert­ed them, that they, very re­luc­tant­ly, in view of his dan­ger­ous con­di­tion, con­sent­ed to help him on his way.

They made as com­fort­able a seat as they could, of blan­kets and skins, which they buck­led on the neck of one of the hors­es just be­fore the sad­dle. Up­on this Crock­ett was seat­ed. One of the men then mount­ed the sad­dle be­hind him, threw both arms around the pa­tient, and thus they com­menced their jour­ney. The saga­cious horse was left to pick out his own way along the nar­row trail at a slow foot-​pace. As the horse thus bore a dou­ble bur­den, af­ter jour­ney­ing an hour or two, Crock­ett’s seat was changed to the oth­er horse. Thus al­ter­nat­ing, the painful jour­ney of near­ly fifty miles was ac­com­plished in about two days.

When they reached the camp, Crock­ett, as was to have been ex­pect­ed, was in a far worse con­di­tion than when they com­menced the jour­ney. It was ev­ident that he was to pass through a long run of fever, and that his re­cov­ery was very doubt­ful. His com­pan­ions could not thus be de­layed. They had al­ready left Fra­zier, one of their com­pa­ny, per­haps to die of the bite of a ven­omous snake; and now they were con­strained to leave Crock­ett, per­haps to die of malar­ial fever.

They as­cer­tained that, at the dis­tance of a few miles from them, there was an­oth­er log cab­in in the wilder­ness. They suc­ceed­ed in pur­chas­ing a cou­ple of hors­es, and in trans­port­ing the sick man to this hum­ble house of refuge. Here Crock­ett was left to await the re­sult of his sick­ness, un­aid­ed by any med­ical skill. For­tu­nate­ly he fell in­to the hands of a fam­ily who treat­ed him with the ut­most kind­ness. For a fort­night he was in delir­ium, and knew noth­ing of what was tran­spir­ing around him.

Crock­ett was a very ami­able man. Even the delir­ium of dis­ease de­vel­oped it­self in kind­ly words and grate­ful feel­ings. He al­ways won the love of those around him. He did not miss del­ica­cies and lux­uries of which he had nev­er known any­thing. Coarse as he was when mea­sured by the stan­dard of a high­er civ­iliza­tion, he was not coarse at all in the es­ti­ma­tion of the so­ci­ety in the midst of which he moved. In this hum­ble cab­in of Jesse Jones, with all its as­pect of penury, Crock­ett was nursed with broth­er­ly and sis­ter­ly kind­ness, and had ev­ery al­le­vi­ation in his sick­ness which his na­ture craved.

The vis­itor to Ver­sailles is shown the mag­nif­icent apart­ment, and the re­gal couch, with its gor­geous hang­ings, up­on which Louis XIV., the proud­est and most pam­pered man on earth, lan­guished and died. Crock­ett, on his pal­let in the log cab­in, with unglazed win­dow and earth­ern floor, was a far less un­hap­py man, than the dy­ing monarch sur­round­ed with re­gal splen­dors.

At the end of a fort­night the pa­tient be­gan slow­ly to mend. His ema­ci­ation was ex­treme, and his re­cov­ery very grad­ual. Af­ter a few weeks he was able to trav­el. He was then on a route where wag­ons passed over a rough road, team­ing the ar­ti­cles need­ed in a new coun­try. Crock­ett hired a wag­oner to give him a seat in his wag­on and to con­vey him to the wag­oner’s house, which was about twen­ty miles dis­tant. Gain­ing strength by the way, when he ar­rived there he hired a horse of the wag­oner, and set out for home.

Great was the as­ton­ish­ment of his fam­ily up­on his ar­rival, for they had giv­en him up as dead. The neigh­bors who set out on this jour­ney with him had re­turned and so re­port­ed; for they had been mis­in­formed. They told Mrs. Crock­ett that they had seen those who were with him when he died, and had as­sist­ed in bury­ing him.

Still the love of change had not been dis­pelled from the bo­som of Crock­ett. He did not like the place where he resid­ed. Af­ter spend­ing a few months at home, he set out, in the au­tumn, up­on an­oth­er ex­plor­ing tour. Our Na­tion­al Gov­ern­ment had re­cent­ly pur­chased, of the Chick­asaw In­di­ans, a large ex­tent of ter­ri­to­ry in South­ern Ten­nessee. Crock­ett thought that in those new lands he would find the earth­ly par­adise of which he was in search. The re­gion was un­sur­veyed, a sav­age wilder­ness, and there were no rec­og­nized laws and no or­ga­nized gov­ern­ment there.

Crock­ett mount­ed his horse, lashed his ri­fle to his back, filled his pow­der-​horn and bul­let-​pouch, and jour­ney­ing west­ward near­ly a hun­dred miles, through path­less wilds whose soli­tudes had a pe­cu­liar charm for him, came to a ro­man­tic spot, called Shoal Creek, in what is now Giles Coun­ty, in the ex­treme south­ern part of Ten­nessee. He found oth­er ad­ven­tur­ers press­ing in­to the new coun­try, where land was abun­dant and fer­tile, and could be had al­most for noth­ing.

Log cab­ins were ris­ing in all di­rec­tions, in what they deemed quite near neigh­bor­hood, for they were not sep­arat­ed more than a mile or two from each oth­er. Crock­ett, hav­ing se­lect­ed his lo­ca­tion on the banks of a crys­tal stream, sum­moned, as was the cus­tom, some neigh­bors to his aid, and speed­ily con­struct­ed the cab­in, of one apart­ment, to shield his fam­ily from the wind and the rain. Mov­ing with such a fam­ily is not a very ar­du­ous un­der­tak­ing. One or two pack-​hors­es con­vey all the house­hold uten­sils. There are no mir­rors, bed­steads, bu­reaus, or chairs to be trans­port­ed. With an auger and a hatch­et, these ar­ti­cles are soon con­struct­ed in their new home. The wife, with the youngest child, rides. The hus­band, with his ri­fle up­on his shoul­der, and fol­lowed by the rest of the chil­dren, trudges along on foot.

Should night or storm over­take them, an hour’s work would throw up a camp, with a cheer­ful fire in front, af­ford­ing them about the same co­horts which they en­joyed in the home they had left. A lit­tle meal, baked in the ash­es, sup­plied them with bread. And dur­ing the jour­ney of the day the ri­fle of the fa­ther would be pret­ty sure to pick up some game to add to the evening repast.

Crock­ett and his fam­ily reached their new home in safe­ty. Here quite a new sphere of life opened be­fore the ad­ven­tur­er, and he be­came so firm­ly set­tled that he re­mained in that lo­ca­tion for three years. In the mean time, pi­oneers from all parts were rapid­ly rear­ing their cab­ins up­on the fer­tile ter­ri­to­ry, which was then called The New Pur­chase.