David soon perceived that his movements were watched, and that he was not his own master to go or stay as he pleased.  This increased his restlessness.  Four or five weeks thus passed away, when, one morning, three wagons laden with merchandise came along, bound to Knoxville.  They were driven by an old man by the name of Dugan, and his two stalwart sons.  They had traversed the road before, and David had seen the old man at his father’s tavern.  Secretly the shrewd boy revealed to him his situation, and his desire to get back to his home.  The father and sons conferred together upon the subject.  They were moved with sympathy for the boy, and, after due deliberation, told him that they should stop for the night about seven miles from that place, and should set out again on their journey with the earliest light of the morning; and that if he could get to them before daylight, he might follow their wagons.

It was Sunday morning, and it so happened that the Dutchman and the family had gone away on a visit.  David collected his clothes and the little money he had, and hid them in a bundle under his bed.  A very small bundle held them all.  The family returned. and, suspecting nothing, all retired to sleep.

David had naturally a very affectionate heart.  He never had been from home before.  His lonely situation roused all the slumbering emotions of his childhood.  In describing this event, he writes: 

“I went to bed early that night, but sleep seemed to be a stranger to me.  For though I was a wild boy, yet I dearly loved my father and mother; and their images appeared to be so deeply fixed in my mind that I could not sleep for thinking of them.  And then the fear that when I should attempt to go out I should be discovered and called to a halt, filled me with anxiety.”

A little after midnight, when the family were in profoundest sleep, David cautiously rose, and taking his little bundle, crept out doors.  To his disappointment he found that it was snowing fast, eight inches having already fallen; and the wintry gale moaned dismally through the treetops.  It was a dark, moonless night.  The cabin was in the fields, half a mile from the road along which the wagons had passed.  This boy of twelve years, alone in the darkness, was to breast the gale and wade through the snow, amid forest glooms, a distance of seven miles, before he could reach the appointed rendezvous.

For a moment his heart sank within him.  Then recovering his resolution, he pushed out boldly into the storm.  For three hours he toiled along, the snow rapidly increasing in depth until it reached up to his knees.  Just before the dawn of the morning he reached the wagons.  The men were up, harnessing their teams.  The Dunns were astounded at the appearance of the little boy amid the darkness and the tempest.  They took him into the house, warmed him by the fire, and gave him a good breakfast, speaking to him words of sympathy and encouragement.  The affectionate heart of David was deeply moved by this tenderness, to which he was quite unaccustomed.