Camping at Nightfall

The men went on ahead, leaving the older boys to look after the women and children. Often and often we did not see them from the beginning of the journey in the morning until we made camp at night. A lean-to of branches and vines with a fire in front of it was our only shelter from the dew until we came through the Gap into Kentucky. Then, as there was danger from the Indians, we lay down on the ground.

There were days when we had really pleasant camping places, and the halt was made early in the after-noon that we might rest sufficiently. Then I was glad that we were going into that land which Mr. Boone said was so beautiful. At such times we had feasts of deer meat or turkeys roasted over a bed of glowing coals, with as much journey cake as we could eat sopped in meat drippings, which we had caught in dishes of bark.

But the time came when we no longer dared to build a fire. We went hungry to bed on the ground with not even a lean-to for shelter, because it would have been dangerous to build a fire that might betray our whereabouts to the Indians.

It was one weary day after another. But there was less labor for us children because our fathers did not dare let us stray very far into the forest in search of the cattle or sheep, lest the Indians should find us.

I could not, if I would, set down the whole story of our climbing the hills until we came to Powell's Valley. There we had a view of the mountains which shut us out from the land in which we were to make new homes.