One day there stopped at the Crockett tavern a man from the head of the Limestone, who had come down the Nolichucky with a load of corn that he had stolen from a neighbor. Of this he openly boasted, and he defied any one to interfere with him. John Crockett told him he did not care to take stolen corn as payment for feeding him and his horses, and asked him to go; but the unwelcome guest said he should stay as long as he liked. The next day, towards dark, appeared a number of horsemen, who had been belated by a storm in the mountains. Among them was Andrew Jackson, and there were also two or three constables and prisoners on the way to Knoxville. Then in his twenty-seventh year, Jackson was an ideal leader of men. More than six feet tall, slender but muscular, the glance of his dark blue eyes meant more than verbal threats. To him, John Crockett told the story of the vainglorious thief. Jackson told the man that he was under arrest, whereupon the latter at once became violent and threatening. The room of the tavern in which the wagoners spent the spare hours was large and dingy, built of logs, and had been the scene of more than one desperate quarrel. There were enough bullet-holes in the logs to prove it. Jackson whispered to a constable, and under the directions of the latter every one left the room except Jackson and the thief. Ten minutes afterwards the latter came out of the room, without his rifle or knife, and sullenly left the place. The horses and the wagon-load of corn were left behind, and were afterwards turned over to the man from whom they had been stolen. Davy, who was a lad of eight or nine years at the time, had been terrified by the threats of the corn-thief, and always wondered at the quiet way in which Andrew Jackson had disposed of him. The small boy’s days are short, but full of zest. Having as yet no conscience, or at least a dormant one, he feels no regrets for his misdeeds, but sleeps the sleep of the just, and wakes with all his faculties for mischief whetted. Where “two or three are gathered together,” there is always danger in the air. Davy had brothers whose experiences gave him a good start, and he “profited by their example.” Up to the age of five, when he danced with rage on the banks of the shore where he had been left alone, he tells us that he never had worn any breeches. From this we infer that as he was easy to overhaul in flight, and was without any protection from the usual application of punishment, he had to grow and be clothed before he became a serious source of trouble. An Irishman fresh from the Old Sod will tell you that “a boy’ll be after huntin’ trouble before his ears are dry.” And once started, he never quits.