ere, too, highwaymen and desperadoes, red and white, built their lairs
and lay in wait. Some of the most revolting crimes of the American
frontier were committed on these northward pathways and their branches.

Joining a party bound for Natchez, a hundred and fifty miles distant
overland, Baily proceeded to Lake Pontchartrain and thence "north by
west through the woods," by way of the ford of the Tangipahoa, Cooper's
Plantation, Tickfaw River, Amite River, and the "Hurricane" (the path of
a tornado) to the beginning of the Apalousa country. This tangled region
of stunted growth was reputed to be seven miles in width from "shore to
shore" and three hundred miles in length. It took the party half a day
to reach the opposite "shore," and they had to quench their thirst on
the way with dew.

At Natchez, Baily organized a party which included the five "Dutchmen"
whose horse boat had proved a failure. For their twenty-one days'
journey to Nashville the party laid in the following provisions: 15
pounds of biscuit, 6 pounds of flour, 12 pounds of bacon, 10 pounds of
dried beef, 8 pounds of rice, 1 1/2 pounds of coffee, 4 pounds of sugar,
and a quantity of pounded corn, such as the Indians used on all their
journeys. After celebrating the Fourth of July, 1797, with "all the
inhabitants who were hostile to the Spanish Government," and bribing the
baker at the Spanish fort to bake them a quarter of a hundredweight of
bread, the party started on their northward journey.

They reached without incident the famous Grindstone Ford of Bayou
Pierre, where crayfishes had destroyed a pioneer dam. Beyond, at the
forks of the path where the Choctaw Trail bore off to the cast the party
pursued the alternate Chickasaw Trail by Indian guidance, and soon noted
the change in the character of the soil from black loam to sandy gravel,
which indicated that they had reached the Piedmont region. Indian
marauders stole one horse from the camp, and three of the party fell
ill. The others, pressed for food, were compelled to leave the sick men
in an improvised camp and to hasten on, promising to send to their
aid the first Indian they should meet "who understood herbs." After
appalling hardships, they crossed the Tennessee and entered the
Nashville country, where the roads were good enough for coaches, for
they met two on the way. Thence Baily proceeded to Knoxville, seeing, as
he went, droves of cattle bound for the settlements of west Tennessee.
With