John James Audubon | Page 9

Audubon and her baby son were sent back to her father's at
Fatland Ford where they remained upwards of a year.
Business at Hendersonville proved dull; the country was but thinly
inhabited and only the coarsest goods were in demand. To procure food
the merchants had to resort to fishing and hunting. They employed a
clerk who proved a good shot; he and Audubon supplied the table while
Rozier again stood behind the counter.
How long the Hendersonville enterprise lasted we do not know.
Another change was finally determined upon, and the next glimpse we
get of Audubon, we see him with his clerk and partner and their
remaining stock in trade, consisting of three hundred barrels of whiskey,
sundry dry goods and powder, on board a keel boat making their way
down the Ohio, in a severe snow storm, toward St. Geneviève, a
settlement on the Mississippi River, where they proposed to try again.
The boat is steered by a long oar, about sixty feet in length, made of the
trunk of a slender tree, and shaped at its outer extremity like the fin of a
dolphin; four oars in the bow propelled her, and with the current they
made about five miles an hour.
Mrs. Audubon, who seems to have returned from her father's, with her
baby, or babies, was left behind at Hendersonville with a friend, until
the result of the new venture should be determined.
In the course of six weeks, after many delays, and adventures with the
ice and the cold, the party reached St. Geneviève.
Audubon has given in his journal a very vivid and interesting account
of this journey. At St. Geneviève, the whiskey was in great demand,
and what had cost them twenty-five cents a gallon, was sold for two
dollars. But Audubon soon became discouraged with the place and
longed to be back in Hendersonville with his family. He did not like the
low bred French-Canadians, who made up most of the population of the
settlement. He sold out his interest in the business to his partner, who
liked the place and the people, and here the two parted company.

Audubon purchased a fine horse and started over the prairies on his
return trip to Hendersonville.
On this journey he came near being murdered by a woman and her two
desperate sons who lived in a cabin on the prairies, where the traveller
put up for the night. He has given a minute and graphic account of this
adventure in his journal.
The cupidity of the woman had been aroused by the sight of Audubon's
gold watch and chain. A wounded Indian, who had also sought refuge
in the shanty had put Audubon upon his guard. It was midnight,
Audubon lay on some bear skins in one corner of the room, feigning
sleep. He had previously slipped out of the cabin and had loaded his
gun, which lay close at hand. Presently he saw the woman sharpen a
huge carving knife, and thrust it into the hand of her drunken son, with
the injunction to kill yon stranger and secure the watch. He was just on
the point of springing up to shoot his would-be murderers, when the
door burst open, and two travellers, each with a long knife, appeared.
Audubon jumped up and told them his situation. The drunken sons and
the woman were bound, and in the morning they were taken out into
the woods and were treated as the Regulators treated delinquents in
those days. They were shot. Whether Audubon did any of the shooting
or not, he does not say. But he aided and abetted, and his Spanish blood
must have tingled in his veins. Then the cabin was set on fire, and the
travellers proceeded on their way.
It must be confessed that this story sounds a good deal like an episode
in a dime novel, and may well be taken with a grain of allowance. Did
remote prairie cabins in those days have grindstones and carving knives?
And why should the would-be murderers use a knife when they had
guns?
Audubon reached Hendersonville in early March, and witnessed the
severe earthquake which visited that part of Kentucky the following
November, 1812. Of this experience we also have a vivid account in his
journals.
Audubon continued to live at Hendersonville, his pecuniary means

much reduced. He says that he made a pedestrian tour back to St.
Geneviève to collect money due him from Rozier, walking the one
hundred and sixty-five miles, much of the time nearly ankle-deep in
mud and water, in a little over three days. Concerning the accuracy of
this statement one also has his doubts. Later he bought a "wild horse,"
and on its back travelled over Tennessee and a portion of Georgia, and
so