n
his friends entreated him not to run the risk of an attempt to return
in such fearful weather. "It was bitter cold," he writes, "but I know'd
my family was without meat, and I determined to get home to them, or
die a-trying."

We will let Crockett tell his own story of his adventures in going back:

"I took my keg of powder and all my hunting tools and cut out. When I
got to the water, it was a sheet of ice as far as I could see. I put on
to it, but hadn't got far before it broke through with me; and so I
took out my tomahawk, and broke my way along before me for a
considerable distance.

"At last I got to where the ice would bear me for a short distance, and
I mounted on it and went ahead. But it soon broke in again, and I had
to wade on till I came to my floating log. I found it so tight this
time, that I know'd it couldn't give me another fall, as it was frozen
in with the ice. I crossed over it without much difficulty, and worked
along till I came to my lodged sapling and my log under the water.

"The swiftness of the current prevented the water from freezing over
it; and so I had to wade, just as I did when I crossed it before. When
I got to my sapling, I left my gun, and climbed out with my powder-keg
first, and then went back and got my gun. By this time, I was nearly
frozen to death; but I saw all along before me where the ice had been
fresh broke, and I thought it must be a bear struggling about in the
water. I therefore fresh-primed my gun, and, cold as I was, I was
determined to make war on him if we met. But I followed the trail till
it led me home. Then I found that it had been made by my young man that
lived with me, who had been sent by my distressed wife to see, if he
could, what had become of me, for they all believed that I was dead.
When I got home, I wasn't quite dead, but mighty nigh it; but had my
powder, and that was what I went for."

The night after Crockett's return a heavy rain fell, which, toward
morning, turned to sleet. But there was no meat in the cabin. There
were at that time three men who were inmates of that lowly
hut--Crockett, a young man, Flavius Harris, who had taken up his abode
with the pioneer, and a brother in-law, who had recently emigrated to
that wild country, and had reared his cabin not far distant from
Crockett's. They all turned out hunting. Crockett, hoping to get a
bear, went up the river into the dense and almost impenetrable
thickets, where the gigantic fores