powers. Its exercise
in Colonel Boone's district did not by any means occupy the whole of
his time and attention. On the contrary, he found sufficient time for
hunting in the winter months--the regular hunting season. At first he
was not very successful in obtaining valuable furs; but after two or
three seasons, he was able to secure a sufficient quantity to enable
him, by the proceeds of their sale, to discharge some outstanding debts
in Kentucky; and he made a journey thither for that purpose. When he had
seen each creditor, and paid him all he demanded, he returned home to
Missouri, and on his arrival he had but half a dollar remaining. "To his
family," says Mr. Peck, "and a circle of friends who had called to see
him, he said, 'Now I am ready and willing to die. I am relieved from a
burden that has long oppressed me. I have paid all my debts, and no one
will say, when I am gone, 'Boone was a dishonest man.' I am perfectly
willing to die.'"[60]

Boone still continued his hunting excursions, attended sometimes by some
friend: but most frequently by a black servant boy. On one of these
occasions these two had to resist an attack of Osage Indians, whom they
speedily put to flight. At another time, when he was entirely alone, a
large encampment of Indians made its appearance in his neighborhood;
and he was compelled to secrete himself for twenty days in his camp,
cooking his food only in the middle of the night, so that the smoke of
his fire would not be seen. At the end of this long period of inaction
the Indians went off.

At another time, while in his hunting camp, with only a negro boy for
his attendant, he fell sick and lay a long time unable to go out. When
sufficiently recovered to walk out, he pointed out to the boy a place
where he wished to be buried if he should die in camp, and also gave
the boy very exact directions about his burial, and the disposal of his
rifle, blankets and peltry.[61]

Among the relations of Colonel Boone, who were settled in his
neighborhood, were Daniel Morgan Boone, his eldest son then living, who
had gone out before his father; Nattra, with his wife, who had followed
in 1800; and Flanders Callaway, his son-in-law, who had come out about
the time that Missouri, then Upper Louisiana, became a part of the
United States territory.[62]

We have already stated that the land granted to Colonel Boone, in
consideration of his performing the duties of Syndic, was lost by his
omission to c