are of myself. I
turned aside to hunt, and had not gone far when I found a deer that had
just been killed, for his flesh was still warm and smoking. From this I
was sure that the Indians who had killed it had been gone only a few
minutes, and though I was never much in favor of one hunter stealing
from another, yet meat was so scarce in camp, I just took up the deer on
my horse before me and carried it on till night.

I could have sold it for almost any price I would have asked, but this
wasn't my rule either in peace or war. Whenever I had anything and saw a
fellow-being suffering, I was more anxious to relieve him than to
benefit myself; and this is one of the true secrets of my being a poor
man to this day. I gave all my deer away except a small part I kept for
myself and just sufficient to make a good supper for my mess. We had to
live mostly on parched corn.

The next night I told my mess I would again try for some meat; so I took
my rifle and cut out, but hadn't gone far when I discovered a large gang
of hogs. I shot one of them down in his tracks, and the rest broke
directly toward the camp. In a few minutes the guns began to roar as bad
as if the whole army had been in an Indian battle, and the hogs to
squeal as bad as the pig did when the devil turned barber. I shouldered
my hog and went on to camp, and when I got there I found they had killed
a good many hogs and a fine fat cow into the bargain. The next morning
we marched on to a Cherokee town and gave the inhabitants an order on
Uncle Sam for the cow and the hogs we had killed.

The next day we met the main army and all went on to Radcliff's. There
we found he had hid all his provisions, and learned that, when I was out
as a spy, he had sent a runner to the Indian camp with the news that the
Red Sticks were crossing at Ten Islands in order to scare me and my men
away with a false alarm. To make some atonement for this, we took the
old scoundrel's two big sons with us, and made them serve through the
war.

We marched to the Ten Islands on the Coosa River, where we established a
fort and sent out spy companies. They soon made prisoners of Bob Catala
and his warriors, and in a few days brought news of some Indians in a
town about eight miles off. So we mounted our horses, and put out for
that town under the direction of two friendly Creeks.

When we got near the town, we divided, one of our pilots going with each
division. Thus we passed on each side of th