Audubon fraternized with the sporting men of his district, who gladly sent him every rare bird that fell to their guns. At Shippingport also, then an independent center below the falls or rapids, he found a sympathetic spirit in Doctor W. C. Galt, a local botanist, as well as in Nicholas Berthoud, who had become his wife's brother-in-law, and who was a friend on whom he could always rely. The spirit of hospitality so manifest in all these new friends won the heart of Audubon and of his attractive wife, to whom the door of a neighbor's house was sure to open whenever business or adventure called her husband away. "We lived," said Audubon, "two years at Louisville, where we enjoyed many of the best pleasures which this life can afford; and whenever we have since passed that way, we have found the kindness of our former friends unimpaired." It was while they were living at Gnathway's hotel of the "Indian Queen," in Louisville, that Victor Gifford Audubon, who was destined to become his father's right hand in the publication of his most important works, was born on June 12, 1809. When Audubon had reached his twenty-fourth year, nature, his fond nurse from infancy, was calling to him more loudly than ever before, but to most of his contemporaries his devotion to natural history could have seemed little else than sheer madness, or, at best, an utter waste of time. By the year 1810 his portfolios were swelling with upwards of two hundred pictures of American birds, produced, to be sure, without any plan, and far inferior to the best of his later work, but still done to the size of life, in the natural colors, and far excelling in fidelity and charm anything that had been attempted before. At this time, however, the young traders needed money for more practical affairs, and Audubon's father-in-law, William Bakewell of "Fatland Ford," consented to sell a portion of this estate, amounting to 170 acres, in order that his daughter, Lucy, might immediately realize her interest in it. From this sale nearly $8,000 was obtained; the money was deposited with Messrs. Robert Kinder & Company of New York, a firm with which Audubon and Rozier had dealt from the opening of their business at Louisville. This is clearly shown by the following interesting letter:[173] _William Bakewell to Audubon & Rozier_ FATLAND FORD _10 Apl 1810_ MESSS AUDUBON & ROZIER GENTN I have at last settled the whole business with Mr Josh Williams I have allowed him for the two thirds in cash 3 per cent & have emitted to Messrs Kinder's 7838.50 on your account.—The quantity was surveyed to 170 acres at 47.5 per acre 7998.50, from which was deducted 160 dols for discount