Several times French Choctaws bribed to murder him, waylaid Adair on the trail--twice when he was alone--only to be baffled by the imperturbable self-possession and alert wit which never failed him in emergencies.
Winning a Choctaw trade cost Adair, besides attacks on his life, 2200 pounds, for which he was never reimbursed, notwithstanding Governor Glen's agreement with him.

And, on his return to Charleston, while the Governor was detaining him "on one pretext or another," he found that a new expedition, which the Governor was favoring for reasons of his own, had set out to capture his Chickasaw trade and gather in "the expected great crop of deerskins and beaver...

before I could possibly return to the Chikkasah Country." Nothing daunted, however, the hardy trader set out alone.
"In the severity of winter, frost, snow, hail and heavy rains succeed each other in these climes, so that I partly rode and partly swam to the Chikkasah country; for not expecting to stay long below [in Charleston] I took no leathern canoe.

Many of the broad, deep creeks...

had now overflowed their banks, ran at a rapid rate and were unpassable to any but DESPERATE PEOPLE...