'
"'I thought so!' cried she warmly. 'I knew if you had a mother living you
would not be here.' From that moment the good woman treated me with a
mother's kindness.
"I remained several days beneath her roof recovering from the fatigue of my
journey. While here I purchased a rifle and practiced daily at a mark to
prepare myself for a hunter's life. When sufficiently recruited in strength
I took leave of my kind host and hostess and resumed my journey.
"At Wheeling I embarked in a flat bottomed family boat, technically called
a broad-horn, a prime river conveyance in those days. In this ark for two
weeks I floated down the Ohio. The river was as yet in all its wild beauty.
Its loftiest trees had not been thinned out. The forest overhung the
water's edge and was occasionally skirted by immense cane-brakes. Wild
animals of all kinds abounded. We heard them rushing through the thickets
and plashing in the water. Deer and bears would frequently swim across the
river; others would come down to the bank and gaze at the boat as it
passed.
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