h on the perilous journey which was to mark the beginning of his
life-work.

Up to that time, the Alleghany Mountains had marked a boundary beyond
which white settlers dared not go, for to the west lay great reaches of
forest, uninhabited except for wild beasts and still wilder bands of
roving Indians. Into this forest, Boone and his companions plunged, and
after some weeks of wandering, emerged into the beautiful and fertile
country of Kentucky--a country not owned by any Indian tribe, but
visited only by wandering war- and hunting-parties from the nations
living north of the Ohio or south of the Tennessee. The party found
game in abundance, especially great droves of buffalo, and spent some
months in hunting and exploring. A roving war-party stumbled upon one of
Boone's companions, and forthwith killed him; a second soon met the same
fate, and Boone himself had more than one narrow escape. The danger grew
so great, that the other members of the party returned over the
mountains, and Boone was, for a time, left alone, as he himself put it,
"without company of any fellow-creature, or even a horse or dog."

His brother joined him after a time, and the two spent the winter
together. Game furnished abundant food, and the only danger was from the
Indians, but that was an ever-present one. Sometimes they slept in
hollow trees, at other times, they changed their resting-place every
night, and after making a fire, would go off for a mile or two in the
woods to sleep. Unceasing vigilance was the price of safety. When spring
came, Boone's brother returned over the mountains, and again he was left
alone. Three months later the brother came back, bringing a party of
hunters, but no one was inclined to settle in so dangerous a locality,
the struggle to possess which was so fierce that it became known as "the
dark and bloody ground."

In 1773, Boone himself started to lead a band of settlers over the
mountains, but while passing through the frowning defiles of the
Cumberland Gap, they were attacked by Indians and driven back, two of
Boone's sons being among the slain. Hunting parties crossed the
mountains from time to time after that, and made great inroads on the
vast herds of game, but the Indians were in arms everywhere, and not
until they had been defeated at the battle of Point Pleasant, the
bloodiest in the history of Virginia with its Indian foe, did they sue
for peace.

The coming of peace marked a new era in the develop