divided into messes of eight or ten men, who
cooked and ate their food together. This led Crockett to decide that he
and his mess would separate themselves from the rest of the army, and
make a small and independent band. The Indian scouts, well armed and
very wary, took the lead. They kept several miles in advance of the
main body of the troops, that they might give timely warning should
they encounter any danger. Crockett and his mess kept close after them,
following their trail, and leaving the army one or two miles behind.

One day the scouts came across nine Indians. We are not informed
whether they were friends or enemies, whether they were hunters or
warriors, whether they were men, women, or children, whether they were
in their wigwams or wandering through the forest, whether they were all
together or were found separately: we are simply told that they were
all shot down. The circumstances of the case are such, that the
probabilities are very strong that they were shot as a wolf or a bear
would be shot, at sight, without asking any questions. The next day the
scouts found a frail encampment where there were three Indians. They
shot them all.

The sufferings of the army, as it toiled along through these vast
realms of unknown rivers and forest glooms, and marshes and
wide-spread, flower-bespangled prairies, became more and more severe.
Game was very scarce. For three days, Crockett's party killed barely
enough to sustain life. He writes:

"At last we all began to get nearly ready to give up the ghost, and lie
down and die, for we had no prospect of provision, and we knowed we
couldn't go much farther without it."

While in this condition they came upon one of those wide and beautiful
prairies which frequently embellish the landscape of the South and the
West This plain was about six miles in width, smooth as a floor, and
waving with tall grass and the most brilliantly colored flowers. It was
bordered with a forest of luxuriant growth, but not a tree dotted its
surface. They came upon a trail leading through the tall, thick grass.
Crockett's practised eye saw at once that it was not a trail made by
human foot-steps, but the narrow path along which deer strolled and
turkeys hobbled in their movement across the field from forest to
forest.

Following this trail, they soon came to a creek of sluggish water. The
lowlands on each side were waving with a rank growth of wild rye,
presenting a very green and beauti