Part 10 (1/2)

DANIEL BOONE

You remember that when the Last French War began, in 1756, the English colonists lived almost entirely east of the Alleghany Mountains. If you will look at your map, you will see how small a part of our present great country they occupied.

Even up to the beginning of the Revolution the Americans had few settlers west of the Alleghanies, and had done very little there to make good their claims to land.

Yet at the close of the war we find that their western boundary-line had been pushed back as far as the Mississippi River. How this was done we shall see if we turn our attention to those early hunters and backwoodsmen who did great service to our country as pioneers in opening up new lands.

One of the most famous of these was Daniel Boone. He was born in Pennsylvania, and, like many of the heroes of the Revolution, he was born in the ”thirties” (1735).

As a boy, Daniel liked to wander in the woods with musket and fis.h.i.+ng-rod, and was never so happy as when alone in the wild forest. The story is told that while a mere lad he wandered one day into the woods some distance from home and built himself a rough shelter of logs, where he would spend days at a time, with only his rifle for company.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Daniel Boone.]

As he was a ”good shot,” we may be sure he never went hungry for lack of food. The game which his rifle brought down he would cook over a pile of burning sticks. If you have done outdoor camp cooking, you can almost taste its woodland flavor. Then at night as he lay under the star-lit sky on a bed of leaves, with the skin of a wild animal for covering, a prince might have envied his dreamless slumber.

This free, wild life made him thoroughly at home in the forests, and trained him for the work he was to do later as a fearless hunter and woodsman.

When Daniel was about thirteen years old his father removed to North Carolina and settled on the Yadkin River. There the boy grew to manhood.

After his marriage, at twenty, he built himself a hut far out in the lonely forest, beyond the homes of the other settlers.

But he was a restless man and looked with longing toward the rugged mountains on the west. Along the foothills other pioneer settlers and hunters had taken up their abode. And young Boone's imagination leaped to the country beyond the mountains, where the forest stretched for miles upon miles, no one knew how far, to the Mississippi River. It was an immense wilderness teeming with game, and he wanted to hunt and explore in it.

He was twenty-five when he made the first ”long hunt” we know about. At this time he went as far as what is now Boone's Creek, in eastern Tennessee.

Other trips doubtless he made which increased his love for wandering; and in 1769, nine years after his first trip, having heard from a stray Indian of a wonderful hunting-ground far to the west, he started out with this Indian and four other men to wander through the wilderness of Kentucky.

For five weeks these bold hunters threaded their way through lonely and pathless mountain forests, facing many dangers from wild beasts and Indians.

BOONE GOES TO KENTUCKY

But when, in June, they reached the blue-gra.s.s region of Kentucky, a beautiful land of stretching prairies, lofty forests, and running streams, they felt well repaid for all the hards.h.i.+ps of their long journey. It was indeed as the Indian had said, alive with game. Buffaloes, wolves, bears, elk, deer, and wild beasts of many kinds abounded, making truly a hunter's paradise.

They at once put up a log shelter, and for six months they hunted to their hearts' content. Then one day two of the party, Boone himself and a man named Stewart, while off on a hunting expedition, were captured by an Indian band. For several days the dusky warriors carefully guarded the two white captives. But on the seventh night, having eaten greedily of game they had killed during the day, they fell into a sound sleep.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Boone's Escape from the Indians.]

Then Boone, who had been watching for this chance, arose quietly from his place among the sleeping Indians and gently wakened Stewart. The two crept stealthily away until out of hearing of the Indians, when, rising to their feet, they bounded off like deer through the dark woods to their own camp.

But they found no one there, for the rest of the party had fled back home.

However, Boone and Stewart stayed on, and some weeks later they were pleasantly surprised when Daniel's brother, Squire Boone, also a woodsman, unexpectedly arrived with another man and joined the camp. The four were quite contented, living and hunting together, until one day Stewart was shot by an Indian and killed. His death so frightened the man who had come over the mountains with Squire Boone, that the woods lost their charm for the poor fellow and he went back home.

So only the two brothers were left. They remained together three months longer in a little cabin in the forest. Then, as their powder and lead were getting low, Squire Boone returned to North Carolina for a fresh supply, leaving his brother to hold the hunting-ground.

Now Boone was left all alone. His life was continually in danger from the Indians. For fear of being surprised, he dared not sleep in camp, but hid himself at night in the cane-brake or thick underbrush, not even kindling a fire lest he should attract the Indians.

During these weeks of waiting for his brother, he led a very lonely life.

In all that time he did not speak to a single human being, nor had he even a dog, cat, or horse for company. Without salt, sugar, or flour, his sole food was the game he shot or caught in traps.