And then, though exhausted by the toil of a three hours’ wading through the drifts, he commenced, in the midst of a mountain storm, a long day’s journey upon foot.  It was as much as the horses could do to drag the heavily laden wagons over the encumbered road.  However weary, he could not ride.  However exhausted, the wagons could not wait for him; neither was there any place in the smothering snow for rest.

Day after day they toiled along, in the endurance of hardships now with difficulty comprehended.  Sometimes they were gladdened with sunny skies and smooth paths.  Again the clouds would gather, and the rain, the sleet, and the snow would envelop them in glooms truly dismal.  Under these circumstances the progress of the wagons was very slow.  David was impatient.  As he watched the sluggish turns of the wheels, he thought that he could travel very much faster if he should push forward alone, leaving the wagons behind him.

At length he became so impatient, thoughts of home having obtained entire possession of his mind, that he informed Mr. Dunn of his intention to press forward as fast as he could.  His elder companions deemed it very imprudent for such a mere child. thus alone, to attempt to traverse the wilderness, and they said all they could to dissuade him, but in vain.  He therefore, early the next morning, bade them farewell, and with light footsteps and a light heart tripped forward, leaving them behind, and accomplishing nearly as much in one day as the wagons could in two.  We are not furnished with any of the details of this wonderful journey of a solitary child through a wilderness of one or two hundred miles.  We know not how he slept at night, or how he obtained food by day.  He informs us that he was at length overtaken by a drover, who had been to Virginia with a herd of cattle, and was returning to Knoxville riding one horse and leading another.

The man was amazed in meeting a mere child in such lonely wilds, and upon hearing his story, his kind heart was touched.  David was a frail little fellow, whose weight would be no burden for a horse, and the good man directed him to mount the animal which he led.  The boy had begun to be very tired.  He was just approaching a turbid stream, whose icy waters, reaching almost to his neck, he would have had to wade but for this Providential assistance.

Travellers in the wilderness seldom trot their horses.  On such a journey, an animal who naturally walks fast is of much more value than one which has attained high speed upon the race-course.  Thus pleasantly mounted, David and his kind protector rode along together until they came within about fifteen miles of John Crockett’s tavern, where their roads diverged.  Here David dismounted, and bidding adieu to his benefactor, almost ran the remaining distance, reaching home that evening.

“The name of this kind gentleman,” he writes, “I have forgotten; for it deserves a high place in my little book.  A remembrance of his kindness to a little straggling boy has, however, a resting-place in my heart, and there it will remain as long as I live.”