fat coon couldn't much more than get along. I got through at last,
and went on to near where I had killed my last deer, and once more
fired off my gun, which was again answered from the boat, which was a
little above me. I moved on as fast as I could, but soon came to water;
and not knowing how deep it was, I halted, and hollered till they came
to me with a skiff. I now got to the boat without further difficulty.
But the briers had worked on me at such a rate that I felt like I
wanted sewing up all over. I took a pretty stiff horn, which soon made
me feel much better. But I was so tired that I could scarcely work my
jaws to eat."

The next morning, Crockett took a young man with him and went out into
the woods to bring in the game he had shot. They brought in two of the
bucks, which afforded them all the supply of venison they needed, and
left the others hanging upon the trees. The boatmen then pushed their
way up the river. The progress was slow, and eleven toilsome days
passed before they reached their destination. Crockett had now
discharged his debt, and prepared to return to his cabin. There was a
light skiff attached to the large flat-bottomed boat in which they had
ascended the river. This skiff Crockett took, and, accompanied by a
young man by the name of Flavius Harris, who had decided to go back
with him, speedily paddled their way down the stream to his cabin.

There were now four occupants of this lonely, dreary hut, which was
surrounded by forests and fallen trees and briers and brambles. They
all went to work vigorously in clearing some land for a corn field,
that they might lay in a store for the coming winter. The spring was
far advanced, and the season for planting nearly gone. They had brought
some seed with them on their pack-horse, and they soon had the pleasure
of seeing the tender sprouts pushing up vigorously through the
luxuriant virgin soil. It was not necessary to fence their field.
Crockett writes:

"There was no stock nor anything else to disturb our corn except the
wild varmints; and the old serpent himself, with a fence to help him,
couldn't keep them out."

Here Crockett and his three companions remained through the summer and
into the autumn, until they could gather in their harvest of corn.
During that time they lived, as they deemed, sumptuously, upon game. To
kill a grizzly bear was ever considered an achievement of which any
hunter might boast. During the summer, Crockett killed t