30 AUDUBON 



as they afforded me ample means to study birds and their habits 

 as I travelled through the beautiful, the darling forests of Ohio, 

 Kentucky, and Pennsylvania. 



Were I here to tell you that once, when travelling, and driving 

 several horses before me laden with goods and dollars, I lost 

 sight of the pack-saddles, and the cash they bore, to watch the 

 motions of a warbler, I should only repeat occurrences that hap- 

 pened a hundred times and more in those days. To an ordinary 

 reader this may appear very odd, but it is as true, my dear sons, as 

 it is that I am now scratching this poor book of mine with a 

 miserable iron pen. Rozier and myself still had some business 

 together, but we became discouraged at Louisville, and I longed 

 to have a wilder range ; this made us remove to Henderson, one 

 hundred and twenty-five miles farther down the fair Ohio. We 

 took there the remainder of our stock on hand, but found the 

 country so very new, and so thinly populated that the commonest 

 goods only were called for. I may say our guns and fishing-lines 

 were the principal means of our support, as regards food. 



John Pope, our clerk, who was a Kentuckian, was a good shot 

 and an excellent fisherman, and he and I attended to the pro- 

 curing of game and fish, while Rozier again stood behind the 

 counter. 



Your beloved mother and I were as happy as possible, the 

 people round loved us, and we them in return ; our profits were 

 enormous, but our sales small, and my partner, who spoke English 

 but badly, suggested that we remove to St. Genevieve, on the 

 the Mississippi River. I acceded to his request to go there, but 

 determined to leave your mother and Victor at Henderson, not 

 being quite sure that our adventure would succeed as we hoped. 

 I therefore placed her and the children under the care of Dr. 

 Rankin and his wife, who had a fine farm about three miles from 

 Henderson, and having arranged our goods on board a large 

 flatboat, my partner and I left Henderson in the month of De- 

 cember, ^812, in a heavy snow-storm. This change in my plans 

 prevented me from going, as I had intended, on a long expedi- 

 tion. In Louisville we had formed the acquaintance of Major 

 Croghan(an old friend of my father's), and of General Jonathan 



