HEROES OF THE LONE STAR STATE.

917

through the wilderness, four hundred miles in extent. He obtained permission to follow an emigrant's wagon, but quickly tiring of their slow progress, struck out alone into the wilderness, and soon left the emigrants far behind. We neither know how he obtained food, how he crossed the rivers, nor how he defended himself from wild beasts. We only know that it was winter when he started and spring when he reached his journey's end.

The home to which he returned was miserable enough. The father was an intemperate old dog, and frequently would take a stout hickory stick and chase David for a mile or two, threatening each moment to kill him. The boy had a marvelous knack for avoiding his pursuer, and simply shouted and laughed at his father's drunken failures. Crockett naturally drifted away from such a'home and engaged in many wild trips over the country to the eastern cities, once even arranging to go to London. This he failed to carry out.

He married an Irish girl in his neighborhood when quite young, and, after the birth of two children, he packed his little belongings on one shaky old horse, placed his wife and children on its mate, and struck across the country to penetrate two hundred and fifty miles further into the western wilderness. This was not his only move. Apparently from innate vagrancy, he would no sooner gather a crop than he would abandon his crumbling shanty, and remove to some other location.

When the Creek war broke out in 1811, such a restless woodsman as Crockett was eager to engage in the conflict. He had many thrilling adventures during the war which we may not here recount. The sufferings of the army for want of food, which were shared by Crockett, have been briefly related elsewhere. During the war his wife died, but, with ready adaptation to circumstances, he quickly married a widow whom he met. A few months after his marriage, intent on another change of location, he and three neighbors set out on an exploring tour in central Alabama.