s Road
that Boone and his men had made. They came down the Ohio River in big
flatboats. These settlers killed game in the forest. They cleared land,
grew crops, built houses, and started towns.

Daniel Boone was fifty years old now. One day he discovered that he did
not own any of the land he had thought was his.

"This does not seem right," he said. "I was one of the first to come to
Kentucky. My life was hard. I risked it for the people many times."

It was not right, but it was true. Boone had been too busy hunting and
trapping to put his claims on paper.

Boone lost almost all his land. He tried to farm, but he was not a good
farmer. He tried to keep a store, but his heart was not in it. His good
wife, Rebecca, often took his place in the store, while Daniel worked
as a guide showing new settlers the way down the Ohio River. And he
held some jobs with the new government.

One day hunters told Daniel Boone about land farther west near the
great Mississippi River. "It's wild and free," they said. "There are
bear and deer. There are herds of buffalo. It's the kind of land
Kentucky used to be."

"That's the place for me," Boone said. "It's too crowded here. The
other day I looked out of the window and saw the smoke of another man's
cabin. I'll go west. I want elbow room."

And besides elbow room, he wanted land. He had always dreamed about
owning a lot of land.

He was disappointed about losing his claims in Kentucky.

So Boone and his family went west. The land where they settled belonged
to Spain. Later it was traded to the French and then bought by America.
It is the land we now call Missouri.

The Spaniards were proud to have Daniel Boone live among them. They
gave him all the land he wanted. He hunted and trapped in the new
country as he had in the old. He sold the furs and skins for a good
price.

Then Boone made a trip back to Kentucky. He called together all the
people he had once known.

"I owed money to you when I left here," he said. "I want to pay my
debts."

When he returned to his family in Missouri, Boone was a poor man again.
But he had a smile on his face.

"I am a free man," he said. "I owe nothing to any man. That makes it
worth being poor again."

The United States Congress voted to give Boone one thousand acres of
land. It was a reward for all he had done in exploring and settling the
West. He hunted and fished until he was very old. He never stopped
exploring. He was still look