ssessed of great bodily strength Jittle for the loneliness.

possessed of greanished

they cared little for e

myriads of game furnis.

23

and hardihood,

The teeming

abundant food; the

black

herds of shaggy-maned bison and noble-antlered elk, the bands of deer and the numerous bear, were all ready for the rifle, and they were

tame and easily slain

ΜΟ

too, sometimes fell two hunters. two huffs the

foo

too,

At times.

would go

The wolf and the cougar, ictims to the prowess of the

slept in hollow trees, or in some bush lean-to Sf their own making; at other times, when they feared Indians, they changed their resting-place every night, and after making a fire off a mile or two in the woods to sleep. Surrounded by brute and human foes, they owed their lives to their sleepless vigilance, their keen senses, their eagle eyes, and their resolute hearts. When the spring came, and the woods were white with the dogwood blossoms, and crimsoned with the red-bud, Boone's brother left him, and Daniel remained for three months alone in the wilderness. The brother soon came back again with a party of hunters; and other parties likewise came in, to wander for months and years through the wilderness; and they wrought huge havoc among the vast herds of game. In 1771 Boone returned to his home. later he started to lead a party of settlers Country; but while passing through

years
to the new

3

Two

the frowning defiles of Cumberland Gap,

were

attacked by Indians, and driven backof Boone's

ever,

own sons being slain. In 1775,
he made another attempt; and this atte

was successful. The Indians attacked the n
comers; but by this time the parties of would

settlers were

own.

sufficiently numerous to hold th
They beat back the Indians, and bu

rough little hamlets, surrounded by log stockad
at Boonesborough and Harrodsburg; and the pe

manent

settlement of Kentucky had begun.

The next few years were passed by Boon
amid unending Indian conflicts.
leader among the settlers, both in peace and in

He was a

one time he represented them in the Burgesses of Virginia; at another time member of the first little Kentucky par

war. At House of he was a liament itself; frontier militia, chopped the the cabins wielding the ax as skilfully business

and he became a colonel of the
He tilled the land, and he
trees himself; he helped to build
and stockades with his own hands,
long-handled, light-headed frontier
as other frontiersmen. His main
that of
surveyor, for his knowledge
and his ability to travel through

was

of the country,

much demand for his services among people who it, in spite of the danger from Indians, created wished to lay off tracts of wild land for their own

future use.

whatever he did, and wherever

be went, he had to be

遙

he went, he had.

907

for his Indian foes.

DANIEL

tilled the stump-dotted r

On the

25

lookout fellows

or more

an foes. When he and his of the party were always on guard, with weapon •*ed fields of corn, one at the ready, for fear of lurking savages. he went to the House of Burgesses he carried his long rifle, and traversed roads not a mile of which was free from the anger of Indian attack. settlements in the early years depended exclu

was

settlemen

sively upon

When

The

me for their meat, and Boone was

the mightiest of all the hunters, so that upon him devolved the task of keeping his people supplied. He killed many buffaloes, and pickled the buffalo beef for use in winter. He killed great numbers of black bear, and made bacon of them, precisely as if they had been hogs. The common game were deer and elk. At that time none of the hunters of Kentucky would waste a shot on anything so small as a prairie-chicken or wild duck; but they sometimes killed geese and swans when they came south in winter and lit on the rivers. But whenever Boone went into the woods after game, he had perpetually to keep watch lest he He never lay himself might be hunted in turn. in wait at a game-lick, save with ears strained to hear the approach of some crawling red foe. He never crept up to a turkey he heard calling, withexercising the utmost care to see that it was Indian; for one of the favorite devices of

out

not an

the Indians

was to imitate the turkey call, thus allure within range some inexperien

hunter.

Besides this warfare, which went on in the mi
of his usual vocations, Boone frequently took t
field on set expeditions against the savage
Once when he and a party of other men we
salt at a lick, they were surprised an
The old hunter wa
with them for some months, but finally

making
carried off by the Indians.

a

prisoner

made his escape and came home through the

trackless

woods as straight as the wild pigeon

flies. He was ever on the watch to ward off the Indian inroads, and to follow the war-parties, and

try

ter,

to rescue

and

two

the prisoners. Once his own daugh-
other girls who were with her, were

Carried off by a band of Indians. Boone raised

Some friends days and

two the

and followed the trail steadily for a night; then they came to where had killed a buffalo calf and were

shot

two of the Indians, and, rushing

mped around it. Firing from a little distance, in, rescued the girls. On another occasion, when

the

whites

Boone had gone
Indians

ther,

the

to visit a salt-lick with his broambushed them and shot the

latter. Boone himself escaped, but the Indians

followed him

for

three miles by the aid of a track

ing dog, until Boone turned, shot the dog, and then

pursuers,

In company with Simon