settlers some men
peculiarly suited for his purpose, but he also realized that he would
have to bring the body of his force from Virginia. Accordingly he
decided to lay the case before Patrick Henry, then Governor of the State
of which Kentucky was only a frontier county.

On October 1, 1777, he started from Harrodsburg, [Footnote: In the
earlier MSS, it is called sometimes Harrodstown and sometimes
Harrodsburg; but from this time on the latter name is in general use.]
to go over the Wilderness road. The brief entries of his diary for this
trip are very interesting and sometimes very amusing. Before starting he
made a rather shrewd and thoroughly characteristic speculation in
horseflesh, buying a horse for L12, and then "swapping" it with Isaac
Shelby and getting L10 to boot. He evidently knew how to make a good
bargain, and had the true backwoods passion for barter. He was detained
a couple of days by that commonest of frontier mischances, his horses
straying; a natural incident when the animals were simply turned loose
on the range and looked up when required. [Footnote: This, like so many
other incidents in the every-day history of the old pioneers, is among
the ordinary experiences of the present sojourner in the far west.] He
travelled in company with a large party of men, women, and children who,
disheartened by the Indian ravages, were going back to the settlements.
They marched from fifteen to twenty miles a day, driving beeves along
for food. In addition the scouts at different times killed three buffalo
[Footnote: One at Rockcastle River, two at Cumberland Ford.] and a few
deer, so that they were not stinted for fresh meat.

When they got out of the wilderness he parted from his companions and
rode off alone. He now stayed at the settler's house that was nearest
when night overtook him. At a large house, such as that of the
Campbell's, near Abingdon, he was of course welcomed to the best, and
treated with a generous hospitality, for which it would have been an
insult to offer money in return. At the small cabins he paid his way;
usually a shilling and threepence or a shilling and sixpence for
breakfast, bed, and feed for the horse; but sometimes four or five
shillings. He fell in with a Captain Campbell, with whom he journeyed a
week, finding him "an agreeable companion." They had to wait over one
stormy day, at a little tavern, and probably whiled away the time by as
much of a carouse as circumstances allowe