from the rain. A hole cut through the slender logs was the only
window. A fire was built in one corner, and the smoke eddied through
a hole left in the roof. The skins of bears, buffaloes, and wolves
provided couches, all sufficient for weary ones, who needed no
artificial opiate to promote sleep. Such, in general, were the
primitive homes of many of those bold emigrants who abandoned the
comforts of civilized life for the solitudes of the wilderness.

They did not want for most of what are called the necessaries of
life. The river and the forest furnished a great variety of fish and
game. Their hut, humble as it was, effectually protected them from
the deluging tempest and the inclement cold. The climate was genial
in a very high degree, and the soil, in its wonderful fertility,
abundantly supplied them with corn and other simple vegetables. But
the silence and solitude which reigned are represented, by those who
experienced them, as at times something dreadful.

One principal motive which led these people to cross the mountains,
was the prospect of an ultimate fortune in the rise of land. Every
man who built a cabin and raised a crop of grain, however small, was
entitled to four hundred acres of land, and a preemption right to
one thousand more adjoining, to be secured by a land-office warrant.

In this lonely home, Mr. Crockett, with his wife and children, dwelt
for some months, perhaps years--we know not how long. One night, the
awful yell of the savage was heard, and a band of human demons came
rushing upon the defenceless family. Imagination cannot paint the
tragedy which ensued. Though this lost world, ever since the fall of
Adam, has been filled to repletion with these scenes of woe, it
causes one's blood to curdle in his veins as he contemplates this