. The drover found some difficulty in managing so many half
wild cattle, as he pressed them forward through the wilderness, and he
bargained with John Crockett to let his son David, who, as we have
said, was then twelve years of age, go with him as his hired help.
Whatever wages he gave was paid to the father.

The boy was to go on foot with this Dutchman four hundred miles,
driving the cattle. This transaction shows very clearly the hard and
unfeeling character of David's parents. When he reached the end of his
journey, so many weary leagues from home, the only way by which he
could return was to attach himself to some emigrant party or some
company of teamsters, and walk back, paying for such food as he might
consume, by the assistance he could render on the way. There are few
parents who could thus have treated a child of twelve years.

The little fellow, whose affections had never been more cultivated than
those of the whelp of the wolf or the cub of the bear, still left home,
as he tells us, with a heavy heart. The Dutchman was an entire stranger
to him, and he knew not what treatment he was to expect at his hands.
He had already experienced enough of forest travel to know its
hardships. A journey of four hundred miles seemed to him like going to
the uttermost parts of the earth. As the pioneers had smoked their
pipes at his father's cabin fire, he had heard many appalling accounts
of bloody conflicts with the Indians, of massacres, scalpings,
tortures, and captivity.

David's father had taught him, very sternly, one lesson, and that was
implicit and prompt obedience to his demands. The boy knew full well
that it would be of no avail for him to make any remonstrance.
Silently, and trying to conceal his tears, he set out on the perilous
enterprise. The cattle could be driven but about fifteen or twenty
miles a day. Between twenty and thirty days were occupied in the
toilsome and perilous journey. The route led them often through marshy
ground, where the mire was trampled knee-deep. All the streams had to
be forded. At times, swollen by the rains, they were very deep. There
were frequent days of storm, when, through the long hours, the poor boy
trudged onward, drenched with rain and shivering with cold. Their fare
was most meagre, consisting almost entirely of such game as they
chanced to shoot, which they roasted on forked sticks before the fire.

When night came, often dark and stormy, the cattle were generally