The undaunted old hunter himself returned to the banks of the
Cumberland, and sojourned throughout the fall and winter in the
neighborhood of the little clearing on which he had raised the corn
crop; a strange, huge, solitary man, self-reliant, unflinching, cut off
from all his fellows by endless leagues of shadowy forest. Thus he dwelt
alone in the vast dim wastes, wandering whithersoever he listed through
the depths of the melancholy and wintry woods, sleeping by his camp-fire
or in the hollow tree-trunk, ever ready to do battle against brute or
human foe--a stark and sombre harbinger of the oncoming civilization.

Spencer's figure, seen through the mist that shrouds early western
history, is striking and picturesque in itself; yet its chief interest
lies in the fact that he was but a type of many other men whose lives
were no less lonely and dangerous. He had no qualities to make him a
leader when settlements sprang up around him. To the end of his days he
remained a solitary hunter and Indian fighter, spurning restraint and
comfort, and seeking the strong excitement of danger to give zest to his
life. Even in the time of the greatest peril from the savages he would
not stay shut up in the forts, but continued his roving, wandering life,
trusting to his own quick senses, wonderful strength, and iron nerves.
He even continued to lie out at night, kindling a fire, and then lying
down to sleep far from it. [Footnote: _Southwestern Monthly_, Nashville,
1852, vol. II. General Hall's narrative.]

Robertson Travels Thither.

Early in the year 1779 a leader of men came to the place where the old
hunter had roamed and killed game; and with the new-comer came those who
were to posses the land. Robertson left the Watauga settlements soon
after the spring opened, [Footnote: It is very difficult to reconcile