“I then felt about with the pole till I found the log, which was just about as deep under the water as I had judged.  I then crawled back and got my gun, which I had left at the stump of the sapling I had cut, and again made my way to the place of lodgment, and then climbed down the other sapling so as to get on the log.  I felt my way along with my feet in the water about waist-deep, but it was a mighty ticklish business.  However, I got over, and by this time I had very little feeling in my feet and legs, as I had been all the time in the water, except what time I was crossing the high log over the river and climbing my lodged sapling.

“I went but a short distance when I came to another slough, over which there was a log, but it was floating on the water.  I thought I could walk it, so I mounted on it.  But when I had got about the middle of the deep water, somehow or somehow else, it turned over, and in I went up to my head.  I waded out of this deep water, and went ahead till I came to the highland, where I stopped to pull of my wet clothes, and put on the others which I held up with my gun above water when I fell in.”

This exchanging of his dripping garments for dry clothes, standing in the snow four inches deep, and exposed to the wintry blast, must have been a pretty severe operation.  Hardy as Crockett was, he was so chilled and numbed by the excessive cold that his flesh had scarcely any feeling.  He tied his wet clothes together and hung them up on the limb of a tree, to drip and dry He thought he would then set out on the full run, and endeavor thus to warm himself by promoting the more rapid circulation of his blood.  But to his surprise he could scarcely move.  With his utmost exertions he could not take a step more than six inches in length.  He had still five miles to walk, through a rough, pathless forest, encumbered with snow.

By great and painful effort he gradually recovered the use of his limbs, and toiling along for two or three hours, late in the evening was cheered by seeing the light of a bright fire shining through the chinks between the logs of his brother’s lonely cabin.  He was received with the utmost cordiality.  Even his hardy pioneer brother listened with astonishment to the narrative of the perils he had surmounted and the sufferings he had endured.  After the refreshment of a warm supper, Crockett wrapped himself in a bearskin, and lying down upon the floor, with his feet to the fire, slept the sweet, untroubled sleep of a babe.  In the morning he awoke as well as ever, feeling no bad consequences from the hardships of the preceding day.

The next morning a freezing gale from the north wailed through the snow-whitened forest, and the cold was almost unendurable.  The earnest persuasions of his brother and his wife induced him to remain with them for the day.  But, with his accustomed energy, instead of enjoying the cosey comfort of the Fireside, he took his rifle, and went out into the woods, wading the snow and breasting the gale.  After the absence of an hour or two, he returned tottering beneath the load of two deer, which he had shot, and which he brought to the cabin on his shoulders.  Thus he made a very liberal contribution to the food of the family, so that his visit was a source of profit to them, not of loss.