da. Autumn was the season of departure on all
forest excursions, because by that time the summer crops had been
gathered in and the day of the deer had come. By hunting, the explorers
must feed themselves on their travels and with deerskins and furs they
must on their return recompense those who had supplied their outfit.
Boone, the incessant but not always lucky wanderer, was in these years
ever in debt for an outfit.

Boone and Hill made their way over the Blue Ridge and the Alleghanies
and crossed the Holston and Clinch rivers. Then they came upon the west
fork of the Big Sandy and, believing that it would lead them to the
Ohio, they continued for at least a hundred miles to the westward. Here
they found a buffalo trace, one of the many beaten out by the herds in
their passage to the salt springs, and they followed it into what is
now Floyd County in eastern Kentucky. But this was not the prairie
land described by Findlay; it was rough and hilly and so overgrown with
laurel as to be almost impenetrable. They therefore wended their way
back towards the river, doubtless erected the usual hunter's camp of
skins or blankets and branches, and spent the winter in hunting and
trapping. Spring found them returning to their homes on the Yadkin with
a fair winter's haul.

Such urgent desire as Boone's, however, was not to be defeated. The next
year brought him his great opportunity. John Findlay came to the Yadkin
with a horse pack of needles and linen and peddler's wares to tempt the
slim purses of the Back Country folk. The two erstwhile comrades in
arms were overjoyed to encounter each other again, and Findlay spent the
winter of 1768-69 in Boone's cabin. While the snow lay deep outside and
good-smelling logs crackled on the hearth, they planned an expedition
into Kentucky through the Gap where Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky
touch one another, which Findlay felt confident he could find. Findlay
had learned of this route from cross-mountain traders in 1753, when he
had descended the Ohio to the site of Louisville, whence he had gone
with some Shawanoes as a prisoner to their town of Es-kip-pa-ki-thi-ki
or Blue Licks. *

* Hanna, "The Wilderness Trail," vol. II, pp. 215-16.

On the first day of May, 1769, Boone and Findlay, accompanied by John
Stewart and three other venturesome spirits, Joseph Holden, James
Mooney, and William Cooley, took horse for the fabled land. Passing
through the Cumberland Gap, they buil