ink none the better of him for that. My mother was of the pure grit;
she learned me and all her children to steal as soon as we could walk
and would hide for us whenever she could. At ten years old I was not a
bad hand. The first good haul I made was from a pedler who lodged at my
father's house one night.

"I began to look after larger spoils and ran several fine horses. By the
time I was twenty I began to acquire considerable character, and
concluded to go off and do my speculation where I was not known, and go
on a larger scale; so I began to see the value of having friends in this
business. I made several associates; I had been acquainted with some old
hands for a long time, who had given me the names of some royal fellows
between Nashville and Tuscaloosa, and between Nashville and Savannah in
the state of Georgia and many other places. Myself and a fellow by the
name of Crenshaw gathered four good horses and started for Georgia. We
got in company with a young South Carolinian just before we reached
Cumberland Mountain, and Crenshaw soon knew all about his business. He
had been to Tennessee to buy a drove of hogs, but when he got there pork
was dearer than he calculated, and he declined purchasing. We concluded
he was a prize. Crenshaw winked at me; I understood his idea. Crenshaw
had traveled the road before, but I never had; we had traveled several
miles on the mountain, when we passed near a great precipice; just
before we passed it, Crenshaw asked me for my whip, which had a pound of
lead in the butt; I handed it to him, and he rode up by the side of the
South Carolinian, and gave him a blow on the side of the head, and
tumbled him from his horse; we lit from our horses and fingered his
pockets; we got twelve hundred and sixty-two dollars. Crenshaw said he
knew of a place to hide him, and gathered him under the arms, and I by
his feet, and conveyed him to a deep crevice in the brow of the
precipice, and tumbled him into it; he went out of sight. We then
tumbled in his saddle, and took his horse with us, which was worth two
hundred dollars. We turned our course for South Alabama, and sold our
horse for a good price. We frolicked for a week or more and were the
highest larks you ever saw. We commenced sporting and gambling, and
lost every cent of our money.

"We were forced to resort to our profession for a second raise. We stole
a negro man, and pushed for Mississippi. We had promised him that we
would conduct h