As he set out for the river, on his way back, he killed two more bucks. Dressing these in the usual way, with the skins on, he hung them up and kept on. Before he got to the river, just at sundown, he killed another buck, making six since morning. At last he reached the lower edge of the “harricane,” and was disappointed at not finding the boat there. He had not expected it could be taken through that day. When he fired his rifle as a signal, the answer came from up the river. He then knew that he had to crawl and climb through the “harricane,” in which all kinds of berry-bushes and vines were growing. A fat coon would have had a hard time in getting through after him, he tells us. Finally he got to a place where a skiff came for him. He says that he felt as if he needed sewing up all over, thanks to the brambles and the briers along his trail, and he was so tired that he could scarcely work his jaws to eat. The next morning four of the deer were secured and taken on board, and the voyage proceeded. Pushing, and hauling with ropes, it took eleven days to reach the Bluff, from which point Davy and a young man named Flavius Harris went back to his cabin in the skiff, given to them by the boatmen. They at once cleared a field, in the usual rough way, leaving the charred stumps standing, and planting among them. Davy put in enough corn to do for the winter, but had no time for fencing. It was late spring, and he was anxious to return for his family. While thus planting and planning, Davy killed ten bears and “a great abundance of deer,” repaying the Owens family many times over for their kindness to him and his boy. In these weeks of hard work the only white faces seen were those of the Owenses, and once in a while those of men looking over the country. There were many Indians in the timber, and sometimes they came to Davy’s clearing, and watched with vague forebodings the gleam of the axe and the tender green of the springing grain. Their traditions were full of the untrammelled freedom of the wilderness, of the plentiful supplies of game and mast, of rivers alive with fish, on whose banks the beaver and otter were scarcely afraid of those who wore the splendid peltries of their kind. When they turned from the scene towards the solitude of the wilderness, their hearts were sad, for the knell of their race resounded through their ancient temples, built by the Great Spirit, whose aisles were rows of stately oak and pine, whose arches of living green were hung with golden blossoms of the tulip-tree and the fiery clusters of the trumpet-vine. There was no sentiment in the heart of the pioneer, who classed the Indian, the wolf, and the moccasin of the steaming swamp, as equally worthy of extermination.