Early August, 1799. A wilderness clearing along the Mud River...a few miles northeast of Russellville, a small town in the vast, nearly unbroken frontier of western Kentucky. A pioneer family has stopped to rest. Two men. Three women. Three babies. A string of pack horses. It has been an exhausting journey, a dangerous one at times. The men are about thirty, the women some five to ten years younger. Each woman has a baby, her own...