went into the woods with his gun in pursuit of game, and, young as
he was, acquired considerable reputation as a marksman.

One day, a Dutchman by the name of Jacob Siler came to the cabin,
driving a large herd of cattle. He had gathered them farther west,
from the luxuriant pastures in the vicinity of Knoxville, where
cattle multiplied with marvellous rapidity, and was taking them back
to market in Virginia. The drover found some difficulty in managing
so many half wild cattle, as he pressed them forward through the
wilderness, and he bargained with John Crockett to let his son
David, who, as we have said, was then twelve years of age, go with
him as his hired help. Whatever wages he gave was paid to the
father.

The boy was to go on foot with this Dutchman four hundred miles,
driving the cattle. This transaction shows very clearly the hard and
unfeeling character of David's parents. When he reached the end of
his journey, so many weary leagues from home, the only way by which
he could return was to attach himself to some emigrant party or some
company of teamsters, and walk back, paying for such food as he
might consume, by the assistance he could render on the way. There
are few parents who could thus have treated a child of twelve years.

The little fellow, whose affections had never been more cultivated
than those of the whelp of the wolf or the cub of the bear, still
left home, as he tells us, with a heavy heart. The Dutchman was an
entire stranger to him, and he knew not what treatment he was to
expect at his hands. He had already experienced enough of forest
travel to know its hardships. A journey of four hundred miles seemed
to him like going to the uttermost parts of the earth. As the