up their few worldly goods, while Daniel made sure
his guns were well oiled, his hunting knife whetted, his dogs fit for
the journey--they meant as much to Boone as wife and children, gossips
said--and the family started for a new home.

This time, in 1760, they went far from the Yadkin into the Watauga
country of Tennessee. He crossed the Blue Ridge and the Unakas, and
settled in what was then western North Carolina, now eastern Tennessee.
That year he led a company as far westward as Abingdon, Virginia. But no
sooner were they settled than Daniel up and left to go deeper into the
forest.

Not only was he a great hunter, he was a good advance agent. Soon,
through his glowing accounts, the fame of the country spread far, even
to Pennsylvania and Virginia. Hunters came to join him. Some stayed with
him wherever he went. It was through his leadership that the first
permanent settlement was made in Tennessee in 1768.

But to go back a year. In 1767 Boone worked his way over the Big Sandy
Trail in the country which Dr. Walker had seen back in 1750. Daniel
lived alone in a crude hut on a fork of the Big Sandy River, close to a
salt lick, you may be sure, for he had to have salt to season the wild
meat which was his only food. He too saw the burning spring that had
helped Dr. Walker to scrutinize his maps at night. In 1768 he entered
Kentucky through Cumberland Gap and traversed the Warrior's Path. From
Pilot Knob he viewed the Great Meadow. That would be something more to
tell about when he got back home.

Though his neighbors may have considered him a shiftless fellow
concerned only with hunting and exploring, a fellow who was ever moving
from pillar to post, his very first visit to Watauga was not without
significance.

It was the way of the wilderness that settlers followed the first
hunters, and Boone with his companions had been in Watauga first in
1760. Eight years afterward a few families had followed the hunters'
trail for good reason.

Things had been going miserably for immigrants in North Carolina. The
situation was fast reaching a desperate point. Some of the oppressed
were for violence if that was needed to obtain justice in the courts.
Others reasoned that there was a better way out. Why not move away in a
body? The wilderness of the Blue Ridge beckoned. It was under Virginia
rule and perhaps life would not be so hard there. Because of Indian
treaties the lands had been surveyed in those rugged western