But they had barely begun this journey when the father, while tipsy, bought a farm on the Georgia frontier, where the two families settled and Gideon interspersed deer hunting with his medical reading.

Next spring the cavalcade crossed the five hundred miles of wilderness in six weeks, and reached the log cabin village of Tuscaloosa, where Gideon built a house.

But provisions were excessively dear, and his hospitality to other land seekers from Georgia soon consumed his savings.

He began whipsawing lumber, but after disablement from a gunpowder explosion he found lighter employment in keeping a billiard room.

He then set out westward again, breaking a road for his wagon as he went.