Part 7

“While I was resting, my old hound went to a log and smelt it awhile, and then raised his eyes towards the sky and cried out. Away he went, and my other dogs with him, and I shouldered up my turkeys again, and followed on as hard as I could drive. The dogs were soon out of sight, and in a very little time I heard them begin to bark. When I got to them, they were barking up a tree, but there was no game there. I concluded that it had been a turkey, and that it had flew away.

“When they saw me coming, away they went again, and, after a little time, began to bark as before. When I got near them, I found they were barking up the wrong tree again, as there was no game there. They served in this way three or four times, until I was so infernal mad that I determined, if I could get near enough, to shoot the old hound at least.

“With this intention, I pushed on the harder, till I came to the edge of an open prairie, and, looking on before my dogs, I saw in and about the biggest bear that ever was seen in America. He looked, at the distance he was from me, like a large black bull. My dogs were afraid to attack him, and that was the reason why they had stopped so often――that I might overtake them. They were now almost up with him, and I took my gobblers from my back and hung them up in a sapling, and broke like a quarter horse after my bear, for the sight of him had put new springs in me. I soon got near to them, but they were just getting into a roaring thicket, and so I couldn’t run through it, but had to pick my way along, and had close work at that.

“In a little while I saw the bear climbing up a large black oak tree, and I crawled on till I got within about eighty yards of him. He was setting with his breast to me, and so I put fresh priming in my gun and fired at him. At this he raised one of his paws and snorted loudly. I loaded again as quick as I could, and fired as near the same place in his breast as possible. At the crack of my gun, here he came tumbling down; and the moment he touched the ground I heard one of my best dogs cry out. I took my tomahawk in one hand and my big butcher-knife in the other, and ran up within four or five paces of him, at which he let my dog go and fixed his eyes on me. I got back in all sorts of a hurry, for I knowed that if he got hold of me, he would hug me altogether too close for comfort. I went to my gun and hastily loaded her again, and shot him a third time, which killed him for good.

“I now began to think about getting him home, but I didn’t know how far it was. So I left him and started; and in order to find him again, I would blaze a sapling every little distance, which would show me the way back; I continued this until I got within a mile of home, for there I knowed very well where I was, and that I could easily find my way back to my blazes. When I got home, I took my brother-in-law and my young man and four horses, and went back. We got there just before dark, and struck up a fire and commenced butchering my bear. It was some time in the night before we finished it; and I can assert, on my honor, that I believe he would have weighed six hundred pounds. It was the second largest I ever saw. I killed one, a few years afterwards, that weighed six hundred and seventeen pounds.

“I now felt fully compensated for my sufferings in going after my powder; and well satisfied that a dog may be doing a good business, _even when he seems to be barking up the wrong tree_.”

The bear referred to as weighing six hundred pounds was a fine specimen of the black bear of the East, but the white bears of Alaska are nearly twice as large. In 1909, near the western extremity of the Alaskan Peninsula, a white bear was killed by Dr. J. Wylie Anderson, of Denver, and Mr. Hornaday, the celebrated zoölogist, estimated its weight at twelve hundred pounds.

In the month of February, 1823, Davy went to Jackson, carrying a great quantity of skins to sell. Jackson was then a little cross-roads settlement, the county seat of Madison County, and about forty miles from Davy’s clearing. He was there only twenty-four hours before the skins were sold, and supplies of sugar, coffee, salt, powder, and lead were bought and packed in readiness for an early start for home the next day.

About this time the outlaws and cut-throats that afterwards came under the leadership of John A. Murrell were haunting the highways of the southwestern part of Tennessee. Now and then stories of murders by Indians were heard with suspicion by the wise; there were white murderers as well as red ones, they thought. Even Davy had little desire to stay any longer than necessary in that vicinity; for the fact that he was now worth robbing might become known to the outlaws, who watched for victims with the keen vision and cruelty of the wolves that howled at night in the dark shadows of the pines. But the evening was before him, and a man who had worked and hunted for six months, as he had, might be expected to look for recreation. He wanted to hunt up some of the men whom he had known in the Creek War, and before long he had found enough of them to make a quorum in the bar-room, whose tallow candles threw a dull glow across the muddy street. If Davy had gone to bed after getting ready to start, his future would have been different, and his history might never have been of especial interest to the world.

While Davy and his fellow-soldiers were busy talking over old times, others came in, among them three prominent candidates for nomination for the Legislature in that district, which included eleven counties. One of these was Doctor Butler, nephew by marriage to General Jackson. Some one said to Davy:

“Crockett, here are three candidates for the Legislature. You ought to offer also, seeing that you know the ropes so well.”

Davy was in doubt as to the man’s sincerity, but he may have had this thought in mind himself. He seems to have had no idea of trying to run, for he told the man that he lived forty miles from a settlement, and had no intention of electioneering. He went home the next morning, with his little boy, and took up his usual round of duties.

About a week afterwards a stranger appeared at the edge of the little clearing of six or seven acres, in the midst of which the smoke curled peacefully from the great “mud-and-sticks” chimney of the Crockett home. He came to the door, which almost always stood open, even in the coldest weather, this being the usual custom in that part of the country, and when he was seated before the leaping flames of the fireplace, he took a paper from his pocket and read aloud the announcement of Davy’s offering for the nomination. Davy heard it with the same suspicion as that with which he had heard the suggestion at Jackson, but the fact that the announcement would look genuine to the public put him on his mettle. It was time to begin the spring work on his little wilderness farm, but for this he hired a young man, and at once set out to feel the public pulse. Everywhere he went his fame as a bear-hunter, and as the member from the cane-brakes, had gone before him. The three men whom he had met at Jackson had settled their affairs by caucus. Doctor Butler had been named, and the others were working for him. To these men, Davy’s electioneering was a huge joke: he lived a three days’ tramp through the wilderness from any public highway; he was a poor man, still a rough backwoodsman, and appeared as little to be feared by his opponents as did Andrew Jackson at first in the eyes of the “silk stockings” of the Old Dominion, who had so nearly monopolized the statesmanship of the nation. As the campaign went on, the news that Davy Crockett would be at a meeting brought out of the woods men who had been there so long that they were like the Butler County man who had to be blindfolded to get him on the cars. Whether it was a barbecue, a shooting-match, corn-husking, log-rolling, or any other of the usual out-of-doors gatherings, Davy, dressed in homespun and wearing a coon-skin cap, and always with his rifle in hand, was the object of attention and admiration.

When he met his opponents he told them that he had little money to use in electioneering. Plenty of tobacco-twist and a jug of liquor would be his best weapons. His young man and the coon-dogs on the Fork would tree and capture all the coons needed to furnish funds for the supplies, but in a pinch he could “go a-wolfing,” kill a wolf, and get three dollars of the State Treasury money for the scalp, to keep him “along on the big string.” His way of talking was more suited to the frontier than to the halls of state; but the voters were with him on election day, and with three candidates against him Davy came out with two hundred and forty-seven more votes than all the others together. The news of his election to the Legislature in a district to which he had just removed, after serving as a Representative from another part of the State, made him famous within the boundaries of Tennessee and even beyond.

When the first session of the Legislature took place, it chose a new United States Senator to succeed John Williams, whose term was about to close. Senator Williams was up for reëlection, and it was evident that the opposition could not beat him with their candidate. In this emergency, they appealed to Andrew Jackson to allow his name to be used against Williams. At that time Jackson was the most talked-of candidate for the Presidency of the United States, but he was not unwilling to become a member of the Senate while biding his time, and he entered into the contest at Nashville, receiving ten more votes, in the joint session of the Legislature, than Colonel Williams. Davy Crockett was one of the twenty-five who voted against Andrew Jackson. Referring to this matter, Davy said, in later years:

“Voting against the old chief was mighty up-hill business to all of them except myself. I never would, nor never did, acknowledge that I was wrong; and I am more certain now that I voted right than ever. I told the people it was the best vote I ever gave; that I had supported the public interest, and cleared my conscience in giving it, instead of gratifying the private ambition of a man. I let the people know, as early as then, that I wouldn’t take a collar round my neck.”

Thus early in his career as a statesman Davy became the political enemy of Jackson. It is not likely that he ever forgave the General for his attempt to force his volunteers to stay longer than they had enlisted for. Jackson was for a tariff, and Davy’s party, locally, were against it. He was looking towards the fulfillment of their wishes, and had no way to avoid a vote against Old Hickory, who without doubt put a mark opposite the name of Crockett, for the purpose of remembering him and punishing him when a chance came about.

Davy Crockett is said to have been the first prominent Whig in Tennessee. His prominence began with his second election as a State representative, and while still in that capacity he was talked of as a possible Congressman. In 1824 the first tariff law was passed by the Congress of the United States, and Tennessee was not in favor of it. Davy was at last persuaded to run for Congress, and made an up-hill fight for the prize. Cotton rose in price after the tariff law was passed, and the planters and merchants were so elated with their sudden prosperity that they gave Colonel Alexander, Davy’s opponent, credit for having helped them by his actions as a Congressman. He was elected by two votes only over Davy, who never felt entirely satisfied that the count was fair. There was nothing to do but to go back to work again as a farmer, with an eye to any speculation that he might be able to undertake. Some of his adventures during the year 1825 will be told in the next chapter.

XI.

EARTHQUAKES

Making shooks for New Orleans――The building of the flat-boats――Davy goes to Reelfoot Lake――A feeling of awe comes over Davy――The story of a strange and mysterious place――Something about the night riders and their neighbors――Where some of Davy’s descendants now reside――The padre’s story of the Reelfoot earthquake and the destruction of New Madrid――The earth trembles beneath his listeners’ feet.

After the harvest was over in the fall of 1825, the year after Davy’s term as Representative had expired, he saw a prospect of making money by the shipment of staves to New Orleans. There was an unlimited supply of white oak on the Obion River and on the shores of a lake about twenty-five miles from his home in the woods. He took a couple of horses and an outfit, and started for the lake, which he reached the next day. It is not known just what Davy meant by “the lake” referred to, but it was probably one of the widened parts of the slow and tortuous river, not far above Island Number Two, at the junction of the Obion with the Mississippi.

As soon as he arrived on the ground, Davy hired men to build two flat-boats and get out the staves. The staves were split from the straight-grained oak logs cut in the woods and hauled to the water. They were often called shooks, and when ready for market were made up in bundles for shipment. When used, they had to be hewed and trimmed with draw-knives, then stood on end in a circle, when they were hooped with hickory bands into hogsheads and fitted with heads. The hogsheads were used for molasses and for the cane sugar produced in the South.

Davy worked with the men he had hired, overseeing the plans for the boats, until everything was well under way, when he had a visit from a neighbor on Reelfoot Lake, who wanted him to take a trip to his part of the country, less than thirty miles distant. Having heard something about this strange body of water, Davy agreed to go, and was in sight of his neighbor’s clearing before sunset of the day following. As he saw the lake for the first time, a feeling of awe came over him, as if he looked into a vista of some old dead or dying world. A fair expanse of shining water, with islands bright with the autumn glories of deciduous trees, and skirted by hills that were dark with pine and hemlock or thickly set with oak and maple groves, was dotted with black and decaying stumps that rose above the surface, high in air, like the masts of a sunken fleet. In places, only the tops of the sunken trees were seen, but everywhere, like the wreck that covers the sea after storm and battle have done their work, were floating logs and drifting limbs, charred and unsightly relics of the wilderness.

Reelfoot Lake is fifty miles long and several miles in width, and where it steams in the sun were once great forests and primeval hunting-grounds. In 1907, it was the scene of a murderous affair that brought the Night Riders of Tennessee into ghastly prominence. On a dark night they killed two men, and a third escaped by hiding under one of the many logs near the edge of the lake. He was wounded by the bullets of the murderers and thought to be drowned. So little is known of the lake, that a description of some of its features should be interesting. In 1909 Richard A. Paddock, in an article in _Sports Afield_, wrote:

“It is a strange, weird, mysterious place, filled with uncanny sights and sounds, haunted by the ghosts of former dusky inhabitants, whom it swallowed without warning and extinguished in a twinkling of an eye in the most diabolical manner, and whose tortured spirits even now cry out for relief and freedom from cruel bondage on every dark and stormy night. Strange and uncanny are its surroundings, and strange and mysterious are its inhabitants; stealth and superstition lurk on its borders. Danger and sudden and premature death are so common as to be held in contemptuous disregard. Mysterious secrets are hidden in its almost impenetrable islands――secrets and mysteries that I hesitate to mention here, for I have had my warning, and know the danger of disregard.

“The lake is inhabited by a race of people who are a class unto themselves; there are no others like them; they take their living and surplus from the waters of Reelfoot Lake. They have nothing else――no other means of livelihood. It is their sustenance, their farm, their business, their all. These fishermen make no idle threats. They are stern, determined, ignorant, superstitious physical giants, who make and execute their own laws, and recognize no others. They suffer from mosquitoes, malaria, and chills and fever, to such an extent that their livers are always out of order, and life has a bilious hue. They go hungry often enough to make them desperate. They do not take kindly to the visiting sportsman. They feel that he is a trespasser on their rights; he is making them and their children go hungry and naked; he ought to be made an example of, to the discouragement of other future unwelcome guests.”

The lake now has all and more than it can support in comfort. Its inhabitants are very poor, always on the ragged edge, always in a hand-to-hand scramble with starvation. They have no other way of gaining a living; they cannot do manual labor; they never have done it, nor have their fathers before them. It is fish, hunt, and trap, or starve, with them, and they usually do all four.

The people about Reelfoot Lake have among them some of Davy’s descendants. His daughters and sons lived in that part of the State, and his relatives and neighbors from the mountains followed the trail he had made. It is not fair to say that his principles live in the code of the Night Riders, but human nature is always the same, and the hungry fishermen of Reelfoot are as jealous of their preserves as was the Red Man of his hunting-grounds.

One night, when Davy sat with his friend’s family before the flare of the blazing logs in the wide fireplace, there was with them a Catholic Father who for years had wandered from St. Louis to New Orleans and Pensacola, and back again, even as Brébeuf and the beardless Garnier, and Isaac Le Jogue, had dared the dangers of the wilderness, seeing visions of Heaven while their stomachs were empty, and ever blazing the cross upon stately trees in the dark recesses of the forests. Davy asked the Padre to tell him the story of the earthquake to which the lake owed its origin. He filled his pipe with tobacco cut from one of Davy’s twists, and then for a long time looked into the heart of the fire, without speaking.

“_Hay catorce años, Señores_,” he finally began in the softest of Spanish, and then, realizing that Davy would not understand him, began again:

“It was fourteen years ago, almost, it being the night of the 16th of December, of the year 1811, that I went on shore at the little city of New Madrid, leaving at the landing the boat in which I had come from St. Louis with Brother Anselmo. When we had found a place in which to rest, and had refreshed ourselves with food for the first time in nearly two days, we walked about the place, being cramped and stiffened from our long sitting in the boat.

“The houses were far apart, built of logs, and set in the midst of mud and filth; but in a greater building than all the others, we heard the music of the dance, the sound of many voices, and all the echoes of thoughtless enjoyment. There were the French from New Orleans and St. Louis, boatmen and traders upon the great river Mississippi, and the Spanish of the settlement, with the Americans from the Ohio and the northern lands. We knew that we should see many we had known, among the people there, and with Brother Anselmo I entered the room. It was a great hall, with floors of sawed timber, very smooth for dancing, and not like the floors of hewn logs that were in the houses of that time. There were many candles about the walls, and also torches of lightwood that flared and hissed and threw black shadows of the dancers across the floor. When they saw us, there was silence, and no one moved until we had been seated in a part of the hall where we could watch the others. Never have I seen, Señores, so gay and so thoughtless a gathering; there were beautiful women there, and the bravest of men, and they were young. I saw the soft light of love in the eyes of men who had dared the tomahawk of the Indian as they had dared the soldiers of Napoleon and the dangers of the deep, and the smiles that answered them were sweeter than those of Fortune or of Fame.

“As the night wore on, we looked from the open door of the hall, across the swirling waters of the Mississippi. The stars were dim with haze, and the air was still and soft and damp; it seemed hard to breathe it down deep in the lungs, and the boatmen looked for rain. It was eleven hours of the night, when wild sounds were heard without, and all the frolic ceased. The reports of many guns and the war-cries of Indians were soon recognized, and they grew louder and came nearer. The people were saying to each other, ‘The war-party is returning from the Chickasaw lands.’ It was not long before there came into the room many white men and as many as twenty Chickasaws, daubed with paint and covered with mud. They had been in pursuit of some of Little Warrior’s braves, who had hidden in the swamps after the murder of the white families along their trail. The chief, Big Tree, held up for all to see the head of one of the Creeks, a sight, Señores, that chilled my blood, for I knew it to be the head of White Corn, whose house was built on the Coosa River, and whose hospitality was always to be counted upon.

“As I looked upon the wild rejoicing over the death of the misguided brave, the old Spanish timepiece rang the midnight hour, so softly and so sweetly, so like the benediction of an angel choir, that in an instant all was still. Then the floor seemed to rise and sway beneath our feet, the building rocked like a ship at sea, and as the torches and the candles fell one by one to the floor, the cries of terror and despair were like the shrieking of the bottomless pit. Before all could reach the street, a dozen were trampled under foot.

“We were sick and faint with the swaying of the ground; the crash of the falling roofs of the cabins was mingled with the roar of the water, swelling in great wrathful waves about the banks. We held our breath as the earth rose suddenly under a cabin across the way, higher and higher, until with a leaping out of gas-like flame we saw what seemed an open grave, deep and wide and long, into which the fated house fell out of sight. There was no longer a crying aloud. Dumb with despair, the hopeless people awaited the coming of the tardy sun. The earth still rocked and trembled and yawned, and huge waves swept at times among the cabins lower down. It was like the Day of Judgment, and what we should see when day had come, no man could think.

“It is a long story, Señores, longer than you have time to hear. When at last there was light once more, we looked across wide lakes where forests of pine and oak had stood the night before. In many a place the tops of the tallest trees were scarcely seen above the waves. Where the bayous had been wide and deep, there was new, strange land, without tree or plant, fresh from the bowels of the earth. The lake upon whose shores we sit to-night had swallowed the hills and valleys of an ancient hunting-ground; the blackened trunks that have stood these many years will remain a hundred more to tell the story of the earthquake that lasted for weeks and months, and changed the face of the region about us; it destroyed the town of New Madrid, now but half rebuilt in a safer spot, and it swept the wilderness with all the destructive force of a hurricane. From this there came the story of Tecumseh’s wrathful threat, to stamp upon the ground and destroy the cabins of the Tookabatcha town.”