Business at Hendersonville proved dull; the country was but thinly inhabited and only the coarsest goods were in demand. To procure food the merchants had to resort to fishing and hunting. They employed a clerk who proved a good shot; he and Audubon supplied the table while Rozier again stood behind the counter. How long the Hendersonville enterprise lasted we do not know. Another change was finally determined upon, and the next glimpse we get of Audubon, we see him with his clerk and partner and their remaining stock in trade, consisting of three hundred barrels of whiskey, sundry dry goods and powder, on board a keel boat making their way down the Ohio, in a severe snow storm, toward St. Geneviève, a settlement on the Mississippi River, where they proposed to try again. The boat is steered by a long oar, about sixty feet in length, made of the trunk of a slender tree, and shaped at its outer extremity like the fin of a dolphin; four oars in the bow propelled her, and with the current they made about five miles an hour. Mrs. Audubon, who seems to have returned from her father's, with her baby, or babies, was left behind at Hendersonville with a friend, until the result of the new venture should be determined. In the course of six weeks, after many delays, and adventures with the ice and the cold, the party reached St. Geneviève. Audubon has given in his journal a very vivid and interesting account of this journey. At St. Geneviève, the whiskey was in great demand, and what had cost them twenty-five cents a gallon, was sold for two dollars. But Audubon soon became discouraged with the place and longed to be back in Hendersonville with his family. He did not like the low bred French-Canadians, who made up most of the population of the settlement. He sold out his interest in the business to his partner, who liked the place and the people, and here the two parted company. Audubon purchased a fine horse and started over the prairies on his return trip to Hendersonville. On this journey he came near being murdered by a woman and her two desperate sons who lived in a cabin on the prairies, where the traveller put up for the night. He has given a minute and graphic account of this adventure in his journal.