It was not safe to encamp directly upon the trail, lest some Creek war-party should be passing along, and should discover them.  It was necessary to seek concealment where even the prying eyes of the savage would with difficulty search them out.  The cry of the shriek-owl is exceedingly shrill, and can be heard at a great distance.  A particular spot on the trail was designated, near which Crockett would seek his secret encampment.  When Jack Thompson reached that spot, he was to imitate the cry of the owl.  Crockett would respond, and thus guide the Indian to his retreat.  As night approached, Crockett, with his party, found a deep and dark ravine, where, encircled by almost impenetrable thickets, he hid his men and the horses.  No campfires could be built.  It was ten o’clock in the night when, in the distance, he heard the signal shriek of the owl, a cry too common to arrest the attention of any Indian bands who might be in the vicinity.  Jack, guided by a responsive cry, soon found the place of concealment, and there the party remained through the night.

The next morning after breakfast they set out to join Major Gibson and his band; but, in some way, they had lost track of him, and he could not be found.  Some were alarmed, as, in so small a band, they were entering the domains of their powerful foe.  Crockett taunted them with their fears; and indeed fear kept them together.  The party consisted now of seven, including the Indian guide.  Most of them determined to press on.  The two or three who were in favor of going back dared not separate from the rest.

At the distance of about twenty miles, Jack Thompson told them that there was a village of friendly Cherokee Indians.  As he was leading them through obscure trails toward that place, they came across the hut of a white man, by the name of Radcliff, who had married a Creek woman, and had been adopted into their tribe.  The man had two nearly grown-up boys, stout, burly fellows, half-breeds by birth, and more than half savage in character and training.  The old man’s cabin was slightly above the usual style of Indian wigwams.  It was in a region of utter solitude.

There Radcliff had taught his barbarian boys some of the arts of industry.  He had cleared quite a space of ground around his hut, and was raising a supply of corn and potatoes ample for his family wants.  With these vegetable productions, and with the game which the rifle supplied them, they lived in abundance, and free from most of those cares which agitate a higher civilization.

But the old man was quite agitated in receiving and entertaining his unwelcome guests.  He was an adopted Creek, and ought to be in sympathy with his nation.  He was bound to regard the white men as his enemies, to withhold from them all important information, and to deliver them up to the Creeks if possible.  Should he be suspected of sympathy with the white men, the tomahawk of the savage would soon cleave his brain.  He entreated Crockett immediately to leave him.