His brother decided to look for work in that region. David,
then thirteen years of age, hoping tremblingly that time enough had
elapsed to save him from a whipping, turned his thoughts homeward. A
brother of the drover was about to return on horseback. David decided
to accompany him, thinking that the man would permit him to ride a part
of the way.

Much to his disgust, the man preferred to ride himself. The horse was
his own. David had no claim to it whatever. He was therefore left to
trudge along on foot. Thus he journeyed for three days. He then made an
excuse for stopping a little while, leaving his companion to go on
alone. He was very careful not again to overtake him. The boy had then,
with four dollars in his pocket, a foot journey before him of between
three and four hundred miles. And this was to be taken through desolate
regions of morass and forest, where, not unfrequently, the lurking
Indian had tomahawked, or gangs of half-famished wolves had devoured
the passing traveller. He was also liable, at any time, to be caught by
night and storm, without any shelter.

As he was sauntering along slowly, that he might be sure and not
overtake his undesirable companion, he met a wagoner coming from
Greenville, in Tennessee, and bound for Gerardstown, Berkeley County,
in the extreme northerly part of Virginia. His route lay directly over
the road which David had traversed. The man's name was Adam Myers. He
was a jovial fellow, and at once won the heart of the vagrant boy.
David soon entered into a bargain with Myers, and turned back with him.
The state of mind in which the boy was may be inferred from the
following extract taken from his autobiography. I omit the profanity,
which was ever sprinkled through all his utterances:

"I often thought of home, and, indeed, wished bad enough to be there.
But when I thought of the school-house, and of Kitchen, my master, and
of the race with my father, and of the big hickory stick he carried,
and of the fierceness of the storm of wrath I had left him in, I was
afraid to venture back. I knew my father's nature so well, that I was
certain his anger would hang on to him like a turtle does to a
fisherman's toe. The promised whipping came slap down upon every
thought of home."

Travelling back with the wagon, after two days' journey, he met his
brother again, who had then decided to return himself to the parental
cabin in Tennessee. He pleaded hard with David to accompany him