206 The Winning of the West 



Robertson was well treated by the few settlers, 

 and stayed long enough to raise a crop of corn, the 

 stand-by of the backwoods pioneer ; like every other 

 hunter, explorer, Indian fighter, and wilderness 

 wanderer, he lived on the game he shot, and the 

 small quantity of maize he was able to carry with 

 him. 19 In the late fall, however, when recrossing 

 the mountain on his way home through the track- 

 less forests, both game and corn failed him. He 

 lost his way, was forced to abandon his horse among 

 impassable precipices, and finally found his rifle 

 useless owing to the powder having become soaked. 

 For fourteen days he lived almost wholly on nuts 

 and wild berries, and was on the point of death 

 from starvation, when he met two hunters on horse- 

 back, who fed him and let him ride their horses by 

 turns, and brought him safely to his home. 



Such hardships were little more than matter-of- 

 course incidents in a life like his; and he at once 

 prepared to set out with his family for the new 

 land. His accounts greatly excited his neighbors, 

 and sixteen families made ready to accompany him. 

 The little caravan started, under Robertson's guid- 

 ance, as soon as the ground had dried after the 

 winter rains in the spring of I77i. 20 They traveled 

 in the usual style of backwoods emigrants ; the men 



19 The importance of maize to the Western settler is shown 

 by the fact that in our tongue it has now monopolized the 

 title of corn. 



20 Putnam, p. 24, says it was after the battle of the Great 

 Alamance, which took place May 16, 1771. An untrustworthy 

 tradition says March. 



