At this time, Crockett, by way of courtesy, was usually called colonel, as with us almost every respectable man takes the title of esquire.  One of the members offended Colonel Crockett by speaking disrespectfully of him as from the back woods, or, as he expressed it, the gentleman from the cane.  Crockett made a very bungling answer, which did not satisfy himself.  After the house adjourned, he very pleasantly invited the gentleman to take a walk with him.  They chatted very sociably by the way, till, at the distance of about a mile, they reached a very secluded spot, when the Colonel, turning to his opponent, said: 

“Do you know what I brought you here for?”

“No,” was the reply.

“Well,” added the Colonel, “I brought you here for the express purpose of whipping you; and now I mean to do it.”

“But,” says the Colonel, in recording the event, “the fellow said he didn’t mean anything, and kept ’pologizing till I got into good humor.”

They walked back as good friends as ever, and no one but themselves knew of the affair.

After the adjournment of the Legislature, Crockett returned to his impoverished home.  The pecuniary losses he had encountered, induced him to make another move, and one for which it is difficult to conceive of any adequate motive.  He took his eldest son, a boy about eight years of age, and a young man by the name of Abram Henry, and with one pack-horse to carry their blankets and provisions, plunged into the vast wilderness west of them, on an exploring tour, in search of a new home.

Crockett and the young man shouldered their rifles.  Day after day the three trudged along, fording streams, clambering hills, wading morasses, and threading ravines, each night constructing a frail shelter, and cooking by their camp-fire such game as they had taken by the way.

After traversing these almost pathless wilds a hundred and fifty miles, and having advanced nearly fifty miles beyond any white settlement, they reached the banks of a lonely stream, called Obion River, on the extreme western frontier of Tennessee.  This river emptied into the Mississippi but a few miles from the spot where Crockett decided to rear his cabin.  His nearest neighbor was seven miles distant, his next fifteen, his next twenty.

About ten years before, that whole region had been convulsed by one of the most terrible earthquakes recorded in history.  One or two awful hurricanes had followed the earthquake, prostrating the gigantic forest, and scattering the trees in all directions.  Appalling indications remained of the power expended by these tremendous forces of nature.  The largest forest-trees were found split from their roots to their tops, and lying half on each side of a deep fissure.  The opening abysses, the entanglement of the prostrate forest, and the dense underbrush which had sprung up, rendered the whole region almost impenetrable.  The country was almost entirely uninhabited.  It had, however, become quite celebrated as being the best hunting-ground in the West.  The fear of earthquakes and the general desolation had prevented even the Indians from rearing their wigwams there.  Consequently wild animals had greatly increased.  The country was filled with bears, wolves, panthers, deer, elks, and other smaller game.