d
further, that the water was about eight or ten feet deep under the log,
and I judged it to be three feet deep over it. After studying a little
what I should do, I determined to cut a forked sapling, which stood
near me, so as to lodge it against the one that stood on the island. In
this I succeeded very well. I then cut me a pole, and then crawled
along on my sapling till I got to the one it was lodged against, which
was about six feet above the water.

"I then felt about with the pole till I found the log, which was just
about as deep under the water as I had judged. I then crawled back and
got my gun, which I had left at the stump of the sapling I had cut, and
again made my way to the place of lodgment, and then climbed down the
other sapling so as to get on the log. I felt my way along with my feet
in the water about waist-deep, but it was a mighty ticklish business.
However, I got over, and by this time I had very little feeling in my
feet and legs, as I had been all the time in the water, except what
time I was crossing the high log over the river and climbing my lodged
sapling.

"I went but a short distance when I came to another slough, over which
there was a log, but it was floating on the water. I thought I could
walk it, so I mounted on it. But when I had got about the middle of the
deep water, somehow or somehow else, it turned over, and in I went up
to my head. I waded out of this deep water, and went ahead till I came
to the highland, where I stopped to pull of my wet clothes, and put on
the others which I held up with my gun above water when I fell in."

This exchanging of his dripping garments for dry clothes, standing in
the snow four inches deep, and exposed to the wintry blast, must have
been a pretty severe operation. Hardy as Crockett was, he was so
chilled and numbed by the excessive cold that his flesh had scarcely
any feeling. He tied his wet clothes together and hung them up on the
limb of a tree, to drip and dry He thought he would then set out on the
full run, and endeavor thus to warm himself by promoting the more rapid
circulation of his blood. But to his surprise he could scarcely move.
With his utmost exertions he could not take a step more than six inches
in length. He had still five miles to walk, through a rough, pathless
forest, encumbered with snow.

By great and painful effort he gradually recovered the use of his
limbs, and toiling along for two or three hours, late in the even