auspicious moment. His neighbors had been sorely tried. They eagerly
welcomed words of a better land in which to live, and sixteen families
followed their leader to the Watauga country.

Things loomed dark for the new settlers for a time. It turned out that
the lands staked out for them were neither in Virginia nor Carolina.
Indeed Robertson and his neighbors found themselves quite "outside the
boundaries of civilized government."

The Scotch-Irish had not forgotten Ulster, and they lost no time in
making a treaty with the Indians upon whose territory they really were.
They drew up leases, and some of the seventeen families even purchased
part of the land.

Soon the ax was ringing in the forest. A cluster of cabins sprang up.
Another settlement was established and before long thousands came to
join the seventeen families who had followed James Robertson. So long as
there had been only a handful of neighbors the problem of government did
not present itself. The level-headed thinkers of the group again put
their heads together and pondered well. Now that they had burned their
bridges behind them they must make firm the rock upon which they built.
Above all they must stand united, with hearts and hands together for the
well-being of all. To that end they formed an Association, the Watauga
Association they called it, and adopted a constitution (1772) by which
to live. It was "the first ever adopted by a community of American-born
freemen," says Theodore Roosevelt in _The Winning of the West_.

If Daniel Boone had been a man to glow with pride he might well have
done so over the outcome of that first hunting trip he made to the
Watauga country. But Daniel was a hunter, an adventurer, an explorer who
loved above all else space. He didn't like being crowded by a lot of
neighbors. So again in 1773, calling his little family around the
fireside one night, he told them he meant to pull up stakes and move on.
They had only been there four years which was a brief time considering
the laborious journey they'd had to get there, the hardships of life, of
clearing ground and taking root again. However, if Rebecca offered
protest it was overcome. Daniel had a way with him. Perhaps she even
helped her husband convince members of her family that it was the thing
to do. Her folks, the Bryans, told others. The word passed around the
family circle until forty of the Bryans had decided they'd join Daniel
and Rebecca. Boone sold his home.