The friendly Indians were so greatly alarmed that they immediately fled.  Crockett felt bound to carry back this intelligence as speedily as possible to the headquarters from which he had come.  He had traversed a distance of about sixty miles in a southerly direction.  They returned, by the same route over which they had passed.  But they found that a general alarm had pervaded the country, Radcliff and his family, abandoning everything, had fled, they knew not where.  When they reached the Cherokee town of which we have before spoken, not a single Indian was to be seen.  Their fires were still burning, which showed the precipitancy with which they had taken flight.  This rather alarmed the party of the whites.  They feared that the Indian warriors were assembling from all quarters, at some secret rendezvous, and would soon fall upon them in overwhelming numbers.  They therefore did not venture to replenish the Indian fires and lie down by the warmth of them, but pushed rapidly on their way.

It chanced to be a serene, moonlight night.  The trail through the forest, which the Indian’s foot for countless generations had trodden smooth, illumined by the soft rays of the moon, was exceedingly beautiful.  They travelled in single file, every nerve at its extreme tension in anticipation of falling into some ambush.  Before morning they had accomplished about thirty miles.  In the grey dawn they again reached Mr. Brown’s.  Here they found grazing for their horses, and corn and game for them selves.

Horses and riders were equally fatigued.  The weary adventurers were in no mood for talking.  After dozing for an hour or two, they again set out, and about noon reached the general rendezvous, from which they had departed but a few days before.  Here Crockett was not a little disappointed in the reception he encountered.  He was a young, raw backwoodsman, nearly on a level with the ordinary savage.  He was exceedingly illiterate, and ignorant.  And yet he had the most amazing self-confidence, with not a particle of reverence for any man, whatever his rank or culture.  He thought no one his superior.  Colonel Coffee paid very little respect to his vainglorious report.  In the following characteristic strain Crockett comments on the event: 

“He didn’t seem to mind my report a bit.  This raised my dander higher than ever.  But I know’d that I had to be on my best behavior, and so I kept it all to myself; though I was so mad that I was burning inside like a tar-kiln, and I wonder that the smoke had not been pouring out of me at all points.  The next day, Major Gibson got in.  He brought a worse tale than I had, though he stated the same facts as far as I went.  This seemed to put our Colonel all in a fidget; and it convinced me clearly of one of the hateful ways of the world.  When I made my report I was not believed, because I was no officer.  I was no great man, but just a poor soldier.  But when the same thing was reported by Major Gibson, why then it was all true as preaching, and the Colonel believed it every word.”