construction, when
there came a terrible freshet, and all their works were swept away. The
flood even inundated Crockett's cabin, and the family was compelled to
fly to a neighboring eminence for safety.

Disheartened by this calamity, John Crockett made another move.
Knoxville, on the Holston River, had by this time become quite a
thriving little settlement of log huts. The main route of emigration
was across the mountains to Abingdon, in Southwestern Virginia, and
then by an extremely rough forest-road across the country to the valley
of the Holston, and down that valley to Knoxville. This route was
mainly traversed by pack-horses and emigrants on foot. But stout
wagons, with great labor, could be driven through.

John Crockett moved still westward to this Holston valley, where he
reared a pretty large log house on this forest road; and opened what he
called a tavern for the entertainment of teamsters and other emigrants.
It was indeed a rude resting-place. But in a fierce storm the exhausted
animals could find a partial shelter beneath a shed of logs, with corn
to eat; and the hardy pioneers could sleep on bear-skins, with their
feet perhaps soaked with rain, feeling the warmth of the cabin fire.
The rifle of John Crockett supplied his guests with the choicest
venison steaks, and his wife baked in the ashes the "journey cake,"
since called johnny cake, made of meal from corn pounded in a mortar or
ground in a hand-mill. The brilliant flame of the pitch-pine knot
illumined the cabin; and around the fire these hardy men often kept
wakeful until midnight, smoking their pipes, telling their stories, and
singing their songs.

This house stood alone in the forest. Often the silence of the night
was disturbed by the cry of the grizzly bear and the howling of wolves.
Here David remained four years, aiding his father in all the laborious
work of clearing the land and tending the cattle. There was of course
no school here, and the boy grew up in entire ignorance of all book
learning. But in these early years he often went into the woods with
his gun in pursuit of game, and, young as he was, acquired considerable
reputation as a marksman.

One day, a Dutchman by the name of Jacob Siler came to the cabin,
driving a large herd of cattle. He had gathered them farther west, from
the luxuriant pastures in the vicinity of Knoxville, where cattle
multiplied with marvellous rapidity, and was taking them back to market
in Virginia