Read Online The Audubon Reader by John James Audubon - Free Book Online

which the hero entered with the most resolute determination.
    All was still for some minutes. He then emerged and said the bear was slain and that I could safely descend. His companions entered the log, and having tied the animal to a long vine which they had cut, our united strength drew him out. This exploit was in fact less dangerous than it appeared, for the bear, when attacked in a confined spot like the trunk of a hollow tree, makes noresistance, but retires further and further back until he is killed. As we returned to camp, one of our Indians broke the twigs in our way from time to time, and on our reaching the camp, two squaws were sent on the track of the broken twigs, who returned at night with the flesh and skin of the animal.
    The nuts were soon nearly all gathered, and I began to perceive that the game must be getting scarce, as the hunters remained in the camp during the greater part of the day. At last, one morning, they packed up their movables, destroyed their abodes and put off in their canoes down the Mississippi for the Little Prairie, bent on moving towards the Arkansas [River]. Their example made us desirous of moving, and I set off with two of the crew to cross the bend of the river and ascertain if the ice still remained too solid to allow us to proceed. The weather was milder, and on reaching the Mississippi, I found the ice so much sunk as to be scarcely discernible above the water, and I toiled along the muddy shore, my fellows keeping about fifty yards behind me, until I reached [the shore opposite]Cape Girardeau. After calling for some time loudly for a boat, we saw a canoe put off from the opposite shore. When it reached us, a stout dark-colored man leaped on shore who said his name was Lorimier, the son of the Spanish governor of Louisiana. Being a good pilot, he undertook with six stout men of his own in addition to our four hands to bring our boat up, and the bargain was soon arranged. His canoe was hauled into the woods, some blaze was made on the surrounding trees [to mark its location] and he then took us by a direct route through the woods back to Cache Creek in about one third of the time I had occupied in coming and ten times more comfortably. The night was spent in preparations—in making towing ropes of bullocks’ hides and cutting good oars—and at daylight we left Cache Creek to embark on wider waters.
    Going down the stream to the mouth of the Ohio was fine sport, and my friend Rozier thought himself near the end of the journey, but alas! when we turned the point and began to ascend the Mississippi we had to stem a current of three miles an hour and to encounter ice which, although sunk, much impeded our progress. The patron, as the director of the boat’s crew is termed, got onshore, and it became the duty of every man to
haul the cordelle
—viz., to tow the boat by a rope fastened to a pole in thebow, leaving only one man in her to steer. This was slow and heavy work, and we only advanced seven miles during the whole day up the famous Mississippi. On the approach of night, our crew camped on the bank, and having made a tremendous fire, we all ate and drank like men that had worked hard, and went to sleep in a few moments. We started the next morning two hours before daybreak, and made about a mile an hour against the current, our sail lying useless, as the wind was contrary. That night we camped out as before, and another, and another after that. A following day finding us at the same work, with very little progress, and the frost becoming quite severe again, our patron put us into winter quarters in the great bend ofTawapatee Bottom.
    What a place for winter quarters! Not a white man’s cabin within twenty miles on the other side of the river, and on our own, none within at least fifty! A regular camp was raised—trees cut down and a cabin erected in less time than a native of Europe would think possible. In search for objects of natural history, I rambled through the deep