breakfast, when a number of hunters appeared with fourteen dogs. The
animals were in hard luck, for Davy tells us that they were so poor
that whenever they indulged in barking they had to lean against the
first tree to rest. They fell on the bones left by the other dogs, and
after the men had been given some of the meat from the scaffold, Davy
“left them and cut out.”
The hunting season was usually at an end before the New Year, as the
bears holed up when the weather became very cold, and remained hidden
until the sap started in the woods. Although they have no food or
water, they are just as fat as ever in the spring, but as their cubs
are born about the time the old ones appear, the mother bears are
not hunted then for the sake of meat or fur. The year in which these
adventures took place was warm during December, and as the story of
Davy’s hunting near the Obion has been read in a thousand school-rooms
in the West, it will be given in as nearly his own words as possible.
At this time he was everywhere known as Colonel Davy Crockett, and
in the middle of the last century, when each scholar used to bring
any book he could get to read from in school, the “History of Colonel
Crockett” rivalled in the small boy’s favor the “Life of General
Francis Marion.” The part most beloved of the young American was the
following, which starts in at the time he left the hungry dogs to gnaw
the bones of the bears killed the day before:
“I hadn’t gone far when my dogs took a first-rate start after a
very large fat old he-bear, which run right plump towards my camp. I
pursued on, but the other hunters had heard the dogs coming, and met
them and killed the bear before I got up to them. I gave him to them,
and cut out for Big Clover Creek, which wasn’t very far off. Just as
I got there and was entering a high cane-brake, my dogs all broke and
went ahead, and in a little time they raised a fuss in the cane, and
seemed to be going every-which-way. I listened a while, and found my
dogs was in two companies, and that both was in a snorting fight. I
sent my little son to one, and I broke for the other. [The son was
nearly eighteen years old.] I got to mine first, and found my dogs
had a two-year-old bear down a-wooling away on him, so I just took my
butcher, and went up and slapped it into him, and killed him without
shooting. There was five of the dogs in my company.
“In a short time I heard my little son fire at his bear. When I went to
him, he had killed it, too. He had two dogs in his team. Just at this
moment we heard my other dog barking a short distance off, and all the
rest at once broke to him. We pushed on, too, and when we got there
we found that he had a still larger bear than either of them we had
killed, treed by himself. We killed that one also, which made three we
had killed in less than half an hour.”
He then goes on to say that the meat was taken care of as on the day
before, and that afterwards he came to where a poor fellow who was the
very picture of hard times was grubbing in the ground.
“I asked him what he was doing away in the woods by himself. He said
he was grubbing [clearing the ground] for a man who intended to settle
there, and that he was doing it because he had no meat for his family,
and could earn a little.
“I was mighty sorry for the poor fellow, for it was not only a hard
but a very slow way to get meat for a hungry family, so I told him if
he would go with me, I would get him more meat than he could earn by
grubbing in a month. I intended to supply him with meat, and also to
get him to assist my little boy in salting and packing up my bears. He
had never seen a bear killed in his life. I told him I had six killed
then, and that my dogs had just gone after another.
“He went off to his little cabin, which was a short distance in the
brush, and his wife was very anxious he should go with me. So we
started and went to the place where I had killed my three bears,
and made a camp. Night now came on, but no word from my dogs yet. I
afterwards found that they had treed the bear they had gone after,
about five miles off, near a man’s house, and had barked at it the
whole enduring night. Poor fellows! Many a time they looked for me,
and wondered why I didn’t come, for they know’d there was no mistake
in me, and I know’d they were as good as ever fluttered in the breeze.
As soon as it was light enough to see, the man took his gun and went
to them, and shot the bear and killed it. My dogs, however, wouldn’t
have anything to do with this stranger; so they left him, and came back
early in the morning to me.
“We got our breakfast and cut out again, and we killed four large and
very fat bears that day. We hunted out the week, and in that time we
killed seventeen, all of them first rate. When we closed our hunt,
I gave the man over a thousand weight of fine, fat bear-meat, which
pleased him mightily, and made him feel rich. I saw him the next fall,
and he told me he had plenty of meat to do him the whole year from his
week’s hunt. My son and me now went home. This was the week between
Christmas and New Year that we made this hunt.
“When we got home, one of my neighbors was out of meat, and wanted me
to go back, and let him go with me, to take another hunt. I couldn’t
refuse, but told him I was afraid the bears had taken to house by
that time, for after they get very fat, in the fall and early part of
the winter, they go into their holes, in large hollow trees or into
hollow logs, or their cane house, or the harricanes, and lie there till
spring, like frozen snakes. And one thing about this will seem mighty
strange to many people. From about the first of January till about the
last of April, these varments lie in their holes altogether.
“In all that time they have no food to eat; and when they come out
they are not an ounce lighter than when they went to house. I don’t
know the cause of this, and still I know it is a fact; and I leave it
to others who have more learning than I have, to account for it.” (The
bears might be suspected of having learned and practised the secrets of
the Norwegian stove, or the modern fireless cooker, whereby a little
heat is made to last for many hours.) “They have not a particle of food
with them, but they just lie and suck the bottoms of their paws all the
time. I have killed many of them in their trees, which enables me to
speak positively upon the subject.
“However, my neighbor, whose name is McDaniel, and my little son and
me, went on down to the lake to my second camp, where we had killed the
seventeen bears the week before, and turned out to hunting. We hunted
all day without the dogs getting a single start. We had carried but
little provisions with us, and the next morning were entirely out of
meat. I sent my son to the house of an old friend, about three miles
off, to get some. The old gentleman was much pleased to hear that I
was hunting in those parts, for the year before the bears had killed a
great many of his hogs. He had that day been killing his bacon hogs,
and so he gave my son some meat, and sent word to me that I must come
in to his house that evening, and that he would have plenty of feed for
my dogs, and some accommodations for ourselves; but before my son got
back, we had gone out hunting, and in a large cane-brake my dogs found
a big bear in a cane house, which he had fixed for his winter quarters,
as they sometimes do.
“When my lead dog found him, and raised the yell, all the rest broke to
him, but none of them entered his house till we got up. I encouraged my
dogs, and they know’d me so well that I could have made them seize the
old serpent himself, with all his horns and heads and cloven foot and
ugliness, if he would have only come to light, so they could have seen
him. They bulged in, and in an instant the bear followed them out, and
I told McDaniel to shoot him, as he was mighty wrathy to kill a bear.
He did so, and killed him prime. We carried him to our camp, by which
time my son had returned; and after we had got our dinners, we packed
up and cut for the house of my friend, whose name was Davidson.
“We got there and stayed with him that night; and the next morning,
having salted up our meat, we left it with him, and started to take
a hunt between the Obion lake and Reelfoot lake. As there had been a
dreadful harricane which passed between them, I was sure there must
be a heap of bears in the fallen timber. We had gone about five miles
without seeing any sign at all; but at length we got on some high cany
ridges, and as we rode along I saw a hole in a large black oak, and, on
examining more closely, I discovered that a bear had clomb the tree. I
could see his tracks going up, but none coming down, and so I was sure
he was in there. A person who is acquainted with bear-hunting, can tell
easy enough when the varment is in the hollow; for as they go up they
don’t slip a bit, but as they come down they make long scratches with
their nails.
“My friend was a little ahead of me, but I called him back and told
him there was a bear in that tree, and I must have him out. So we lit
from our horses, and I found a small tree which I thought I could fall
so as to lodge against my bear tree, and we fell to work chopping it
with our tomahawks. I intended, when we lodged the tree against the
other, to let my little son go up and look into the hole, for he could
climb like a squirrel. We had chopped on a little time, and stopped to
rest, when I heard my dogs barking mighty severe at some distance from
us, and I told my friend I know’d they had a bear; for it is the nature
of dogs, when they find you are hunting bears, to hunt for nothing
else. They become fond of the meat, and consider other game as ‘not
worth a notice,’ as old John said of the devil.
“We concluded to leave our tree a bit, and went to my dogs, and when
we got there, sure enough they had an eternal great big fat bear up
a tree, just ready for shooting. My friend again petitioned me for
liberty to shoot this one also. I had a little rather not, as the bear
was so big, but I couldn’t refuse; and so he blazed away, and down came
the old fellow like some great log had fell.
“I now missed one of my dogs, the same that I had before spoke of as
having treed the bear by himself some time before, when I had started
the three in the cane-brake. I told my friend that my missing dog had a
bear somewhere, just as sure as fate; so I left them to butcher the one
we had just killed, and I went up on a piece of high ground to listen
for my dog. I heard him barking with all his might some distance off,
and I pushed ahead for him. My other dogs that were with me heard him
and broke for him, and when I got there, sure enough he had another
bear already treed. If he hadn’t, I wish I may be shot! I fired on him,
and brought him down; and then went back, and helped finish butchering
the one when I had left my friend. We then packed, on our horses, both
to the tree where I had left my boy.
“By this time, the little fellow had cut the tree down that we intended
to lodge against the hollow one, but it fell the wrong way; he had
then feathered in on the big tree, to cut that, and had found that it
was nothing but a shell on the outside, and all doted [decayed] in the
middle, as too many of our big men are in these days, having only an
outside appearance. My friend and my son cut away on it, and I went
off about a hundred yards with my dogs to keep them from running under
the tree when it should fall. On looking back at the hole in the tree,
I saw the bear’s head out of it, watching down at them as they were
cutting. I hollered to them to look up, and they did so, and McDaniel
catched up his gun; but by this time the bear was out, and coming down
the tree. He fired at it, and as soon as it touched the ground the dogs
were all round it, and they had a roll-and-tumble fight to the foot of
the hill, where they stopped him. I ran up, and, putting my gun against
the bear, fired and killed him. We had now three, and so we made our
scaffold and salted them up.”
XIII.
LOST IN THE WOODS
Continuation of the Reelfoot hunt――Starts a big fellow in the
“harricane”――Snaking it through the brambles and fallen trees――Trees
the bear and kills him, and misses his hunting-knife――His knife found
by McDaniel――A terrible encounter with a bear after dark――Davy kills
him with his knife in a deep chasm caused by the earthquakes――The dogs
are badly mauled, and Davy is lost in the woods――He climbs up and down
a smooth-barked tree all night to keep from freezing to death――Another
’quake follows――A total of fifty-eight bears in four months.
The “harricanes” so often referred to by Davy were undoubtedly the
work of the earthquakes before described, together with the fierce
wind-storms that seemed to be a part of the disturbances. The story of
the Reelfoot hunting-trip goes on as follows:
“In the morning we left my son at the camp, and we started on towards
the harricane; and when we had went about a mile, we started a very
large bear, but we got along mighty slow on account of the cracks in
the earth occasioned by the earthquakes. [These cracks, which may still
be traced after the lapse of a hundred years, ran from southwest to
northeast, and in many places great trees that had been split in the
middle, stood with divided trunks above the chasms.]
“We, however, managed to keep within hearing of the dogs, for about
three miles, and then we come to the harricane. Here we had to quit
our horses, as old Nick himself couldn’t have got through it without
sneaking along in the form he put on to make a fool of our old
grandmother Eve. By this time several of my dogs had got tired and come
back; but we went on ahead for some time in the harricane, when we met
a bear coming straight to us, and not more than twenty or thirty yards
off. I started my tired dogs after him, and McDaniel pursued them, and
I went on to where my other dogs were. I had seen the track of the bear
they were after, and I know’d he was a screamer.
“I followed on to about the middle of the harricane, but my dogs
pursued him so close that they made him climb an old stump about twenty
feet high. I got within shooting distance of him and fired, but I was
all over in such a flutter from fatigue and running, that I couldn’t
hold steady; but, however, I broke his shoulder, and he fell. I run up
and loaded my gun as quick as possible, and shot him again and killed
him. When I went to take out my knife to butcher him, I found I had
lost it in coming through the harricane. The vines and briers was so
thick that I would sometimes have to get down and crawl like a varment
to get through at all; and a vine had, as I supposed, caught in the
handle and pulled it out. While I was standing and studying what to do,
my friend came to me. He had followed my trail through the harricane,
and had found my knife, which was mighty good news to me, as a hunter
hates the worst in the world to lose a good dog, or any part of his
hunting tools. I now left McDaniel to butcher the bear, and went after
the horses, and brought them as near as the nature of the case would
allow. I then took our bags and went back to where he was; and when
we had skinned the bear we fleeced off the fat and carried it to our
horses in several loads. We then packed it upon our horses, and had a
heavy load on each one. We now started and went on till about sunset,
when I concluded we must be near our camp; so I hollered and my son
answered me, and we moved on in the direction to the camp.
“We had gone but a little way when I heard my dogs make a warm start
again; and I jumped down from my horse and gave him up to my friend,
and told him I would follow them. He went on to the camp, and I went
ahead after my dogs with all my might for a considerable distance,
till at last night came on. The ground was very rough and hilly,
and all covered over with cane. I now was compelled to move on more
slowly; and was frequently falling over logs, and into the cracks of
the earthquakes, so that I was very much afraid I would break my gun.
However, I went about three miles, when I came to a good big creek,
which I waded. It was very cold, and the creek was about knee-deep;
but I felt no great inconvenience from it just then, as I was all
over wet with sweat from running, and I felt hot enough. After I got
over this creek, and out of the cane, which was very thick on all
our creeks, I listened for my dogs. I found they had either treed or
brought the bear to a stop, as they continued barking in the same place.
“I pushed on in the direction of the noise, as far as I could, till I
found the hill was too steep for me to climb, and so I backed and went
down the creek for some distance, till I came to a hollow, and took
up that, till I came to a place where I could climb the hill. It was
mighty dark, and it was difficult to see my way or anything else. When
I got up the hill, I found I had passed the dogs, and so I turned and
went to them. I found, when I got there, they had treed the bear in a
large forked poplar, and it was setting in the fork.
“I could see the lump, but not plain enough to shoot with any
certainty, as there was no moonlight; and so I set in to hunting for
some dry bush to make me a light; but I could find none, though I
could find that the ground was torn mightily to pieces by the cracks.
“At last I thought I could shoot by guess, and kill him; so I pointed
as near the lump as I could, and fired away. But the bear didn’t come,
he only clumb up higher, and got out on a limb, which helped me to see
him better. I now loaded up and fired again, but he didn’t move at all
this time. I commenced loading for a third fire, but the first thing
I know’d, the bear was down among my dogs, and they were fighting all
around me. I had my big butcher-knife in my belt, and I had a pair
of dressed buckskin breeches on. So I took out my knife, and stood,
determined, if he should get hold of me, to defend myself in the best
way I could. I stood there for some time, and could now and then see a
white dog I had, but the rest of them, and the bear, I couldn’t see at
all, it was so miserable dark.
“They still fought around me, and within three feet of me; but at last
the bear got down into one of the cracks that the earthquake had made
in the ground, about four feet, and I could tell the biting end of him
by the hollering of my dogs. So I took my gun and pushed the muzzle of
it about till I thought I had it against the main part of his body, and
fired; but it happened to be only the fleshy part of his foreleg. With
this he jumped out of the crack, and he and the dogs had another hard
fight around me, as before. At last, however, they forced him back into
the crack again, as he was when I had shot.
“I then began to hunt for my gun, which I had laid down in the dark;
and, while hunting, I got hold of a pole, and I concluded I would punch
him with it awhile. I did so, and when I would punch him, the dogs
would jump in on him, when he would bite them badly and they would
jump out again. I concluded, as he would take punching so patiently,
it might be that he would lie still enough for me to get down into the
crack, and feel slowly along till I could find the right place to give
him a dig with my butcher. So I got down, and my dogs got in front of
him and kept his head towards them, till I got along easily up to him;
and, placing my hand on his rump, felt for his shoulder, just behind
where I intended to stick him. I made a lunge with my long knife, and
fortunately struck him right through the heart, at which he just sank
down, and I crawled out in a hurry.”
Davy had to stay all night at the place where he had killed the bear,
and nearly froze to death before morning. To avoid this, he hit upon
a plan that would be impossible for most men to carry out. He found a
two-foot tree near-by, without limbs for thirty feet, and by climbing
it as far as the forks, and then sliding back to the ground, he managed
to keep his blood in circulation.
When McDaniel afterwards saw what Davy had done, he said he wouldn’t
have gone down into the place with the bear for all the bears in the
woods.
The two men worked and hunted all the next day, and at night were glad
to rest. They had gone to sleep as near the fire as they dared, when
something happened; as Davy says, “About ten o’clock there came a most
terrible earthquake, which shook the earth so that we were rocked about
like we had been in a cradle. We were very much alarmed; for though we
were accustomed to feel earthquakes, we were now right in the region
which had been torn to pieces by them in 1812, and we thought it might
take a notion and swallow us up, as the big fish did Jonah.”
When the hunt ended, and the meat had been packed to their homes, both
McDaniel and Davy had enough and to spare. Davy says that during the
fall and up to January, he killed fifty-eight bears, thus adding to his
already great renown as a bear-hunter.
XIV.
THE MISSISSIPPI FLOOD
The flat-boats start for New Orleans――All hands appalled by the
Mississippi’s flood――A good-for-nothing pilot――They try in vain to
make a landing――Passing the “Devil’s Elbow”――Uncle Julius is “mighty
scared”――The darky’s song――A sudden wreck, and a close call for
Davy――The crew sit all night on the flood-trash of an island in the
middle of the river――They are rescued by a steamboat and landed at
Memphis――Davy finds a friend in Major Winchester――His return home.
The bears having taken to their winter hiding places――at least, those
that Davy and his partners had not killed――there was nothing to keep
back the work of splitting staves and completing the two boats. The
latter were of the flat-bottom sort, strongly built of hewed timbers,
and planks sawed in pits or upon scaffolds. They were caulked and
pitched, and each had a well for the purpose of bailing water that
leaked in. The decks were flat, with a small hatchway house over the
entrance of the cabin below it. On board of a ship this would be
called the companionway. The steering was done with a long sweep, or
oar, at the stern, and sometimes with poles. Thirty thousand staves
were put on board the two boats, and as soon as everything was ready a
start was made.
The Deer and the Obion Rivers flow into the Mississippi at no great
distance apart. Near the mouth of the Obion, a lake or bayou joins
the channels, and this lake is thought by many to be the one upon
whose shores the boats were built. As Davy was but a short time in
getting his fleet out of the Obion and into the Mississippi, the lake
must have been near the latter river. When they floated out into the
Father of Waters, as the Indians call the great river, the venturous
woodsmen were appalled by the immensity of the flood upon which they
were borne swiftly along. Across the mile or more of yellow water that
reached from shore to shore, bordered with leafless sycamores and
cypress swamps, they saw new perils loom at every curve of the tortuous
stream. The river flows at the rate of two hundred feet per minute,
and as island after island, and bend after bend, had to be avoided or
navigated with all the strength and watchfulness that was in them, it
is not to be wondered at that, as Davy says, all the hands were “bad
scared.”
Davy’s motto had always been to “go ahead,” but now he seems to have
had no choice. He had never been down the river, probably never before
had seen it, and the man hired as pilot was found to be a fraud. As the
two boats were constantly either drifting apart or bumping into each
other, they were lashed together, in the hope that in that way they
might be more manageable.
Towards night they fell in with some boats from the Ohio, and when Davy
wanted to make a landing, and tried without success to stop at the
river’s banks, the Ohio boatmen shouted to him to keep on and run all
night. He didn’t want then to “go ahead,” but there was no other way.
The clumsy craft were always trying to butt into trouble. Sawyers, and
planters, and sand-bars, and right-about curves of the channel, were
forcing the crew to superhuman exertions, partly because they trusted
to main strength without skill. Soon after they gave up trying to land,
they came to a place called “The Devil’s Elbow.” Here Davy says he had
the hardest work of his life. He twice attempted to land at Wood-yards,
but could not. The people on shore tried to guide them with lights,
and shouted to direct their efforts, but the boats were too heavy to
manage, and finally the exhausted crew gave up the fight, and let the
river sweep them along at will.