Often the silence of the night was disturbed by the cry of the grizzly bear and the howling of wolves.
Here David remained four years, aiding his father in all the laborious work of clearing the land and tending the cattle.

There was of course no school here, and the boy grew up in entire ignorance of all book learning.

But in these early years he often went into the woods with his gun in pursuit of game, and, young as he was, acquired considerable reputation as a marksman.
One day, a Dutchman by the name of Jacob Siler came to the cabin, driving a large herd of cattle.

He had gathered them farther west, from the luxuriant pastures in the vicinity of Knoxville, where cattle multiplied with marvellous rapidity, and was taking them back to market in Virginia.

The drover found some difficulty in managing so many half wild cattle, as he pressed them forward through the wilderness, and he bargained with John Crockett to let his son David, who, as we have said, was then twelve years of age, go with him as his hired help.
Whatever wages he gave was paid to the father.
The boy was to go on foot with this Dutchman four hundred miles, driving the cattle.