Triumphal Return.--Home Charms Vanish.--Loses His Election.--Bitter Disappointment.--Crockett's Poetry.--Sets out for Texas.--Incidents of the Journey.--Reception at Little Rock.--The Shooting Match.--Meeting a Clergyman.--The Juggler.--Crockett a Reformer.--The Bee Hunter.--The Rough Strangers.--Scene on the Prairie. . . . 290 CHAPTER XII. Adventures on the Prairie. Disappearance of the Bee Hunter.--The Herd of Buffalo Crockett lost.--The Fight with the Cougar.--Approach of Savages.--Their Friendliness.--Picnic on the Prairie.--Picturesque Scene.--The Lost Mustang recovered.--Unexpected Reunion.--Departure of the Savages.--Skirmish with the Mexicans.--Arrival at the Alamo. . . .312 CHAPTER XIII. Conclusion. The Fortress of Alamo.--Colonel Bowie.--Bombardment of the Fort.--Crockett's Journal.--Sharpshooting.--Fight outside of the Fort.--Death of the Bee Hunter.--Kate of Nacogdoches.--Assault on the Citadel.--Crockett a Prisoner.--His Death. . . . 340 DAVID CROCKETT. CHAPTER I. Parentage and Childhood. The Emigrant.--Crossing the Alleghanies.--The boundless Wilderness.--The Hut on the Holston.--Life's Necessaries.--The Massacre.--Birth of David Crockett.--Peril of the Boys.--Anecdote.--Removal to Greenville; to Cove Creek.--Increased Emigration.--Loss of the Mill.--The Tavern.--Engagement with the Drover.--Adventures in the Wilderness.--Virtual Captivity.--The Escape.--The Return.--The Runaway.--New Adventures. A little more than a hundred years ago, a poor man, by the name of Crockett, embarked on board an emigrant-ship, in Ireland, for the New World. He was in the humblest station in life. But very little is known respecting his uneventful career excepting its tragical close. His family consisted of a wife and three or four children. Just before he sailed, or on the Atlantic passage, a son was born, to whom he gave the name of John. The family probably landed in Philadelphia, and dwelt somewhere in Pennsylvania, for a year or two, in one of those slab shanties, with which all are familiar as the abodes of the poorest class of Irish emigrants. After a year or two, Crockett, with his little family, crossed the almost pathless Alleghanies. Father, mother, and children trudged along through the rugged defiles and over the rocky cliffs, on foot. Probably a single pack-horse conveyed their few household goods. The hatchet and the rifle were the only means of obtaining food, shelter, and even clothing. With the hatchet, in an hour or two, a comfortable camp could be constructed, which would protect them from wind and rain. The camp-fire, cheering the darkness of the night, drying their often wet garments, and warming their chilled limbs with its genial glow, enabled them to enjoy that almost greatest of earthly luxuries, peaceful sleep.