the journey. She mended garments; she gathered up their few cooking
utensils and the furry hides that were their blankets. She tied some of
her choice things in her apron. That she'd carry right on her arm. The
boys helped their father make ready the great cumbersome cart that was
to carry their possessions. When all was in readiness Daniel pulled on
his coonskin cap and whistling up his dogs he started off resolutely
ahead of his family.

On and on they went until they reached Spanish territory beyond the
Mississippi in Upper Louisiana. There at Charette (fifty miles west of
St. Louis) Daniel Boone remained for a score of years, still hunting and
trapping.

Even after Rebecca died he stayed on in the log cabin that had been
their home for so long. An old man of seventy-eight he was, with many a
sorrow to look back upon. For him the trail had been a "bloody one,"
Daniel often reflected. He had seen two of his boys fall under the
tomahawk, and his brothers too. He had seen Rebecca's grief and terror
at bloodshed; her anxiety in the lonely life of the wilderness. He had
seen her despair when the very ground in which they had taken root was
torn from under their feet. He had known the suffering of winter winds,
the desolation of the forest. He had suffered innumerable hardships. All
these things he lived again as he sat alone in the house where Rebecca
had died.

But the spirit of the hunter still burned in the old man's bosom at the
age of eighty-five. Even then he was all for shouldering his gun once
more and setting out with an Indian lad to explore the Rockies. His son
persuaded him to give up the thought. "You're too old, Pa. If you fall
over a cliff your bones would be broke to smithereens. Come and live
with me. My house is safe. It's all built of stone. The Indians can't
burn down a stone house." After much bickering Daniel finally heeded his
son and went to live with him. He died there in 1822.

The fort which he so proudly built and valiantly defended continues to
bear his name, being one of at least thirty localities in the United
States which take their name from the first pioneer of the great valley
of the Mississippi. His body lies in a little cemetery in Kentucky's
capital. A humble grave, though as you stand beside it you feel the
spirit of the great hunter hovering near. A courageous explorer in
leather breeches and coonskin cap blazed the trail through an unbroken
wilderness to help build America.