for
days and weeks, pushed the hardy pioneers, their rifles
providing them with game, their eyes on the alert against
savages, until, after what seemed months of toil, the
mountains were passed and the fertile plains and extended
forests of Kentucky lay before them.

"We found everywhere" says Boone, "abundance of wild beasts
of all sorts, through this vast forest. The buffalo were
more frequent than I have seen cattle in the settlements,
browsing on the leaves of the cane, or cropping the herbage
of these extensive plains, fearless, because ignorant of the
violence of man. In this forest, the habitation of beasts of
every kind natural to America, we practised hunting with
great success until the 22d day of December following."

On that day Boone and another were taken prisoner by a party
of Indians. Seven days they were held, uncertain as to their
fate, but at length, by a skilful artifice, they escaped and
made their way back to their camp, only to find it deserted,
those whom they had left there having returned to North
Carolina. Other adventurers soon joined them, however,
Boone's brother among them, and the remainder of the winter
was passed in safety.

As regards the immediately succeeding events, it will
suffice to say that Squire Boone, as Daniel's brother was
called, returned to the settlements in the spring for
supplies, the others having gone before, so that the daring
hunter was left alone in that vast wilderness. Even his dog
had deserted him, and the absolute solitude of nature
surrounded him.

The movements we have described had not passed unknown to
the Indians, and only the most extraordinary caution saved
the solitary hunter from his dusky foes. He changed his camp
every night, never sleeping twice in the same place. Often
he found that it had been visited by Indians in his absence.
Once a party of savages pursued him for many miles, until,
by speed and skill, he threw them from his trail. Many and
perilous were his adventures during his three months of
lonely life in the woods and canebrakes of that fear-haunted
land. Prowling wolves troubled him by night, prowling
savages by day, yet fear never entered his bold heart, and
cheerfulness never fled from his mind. He was the true
pioneer, despising peril and proof against loneliness. At
length his brother joined him, with horses and supplies, and
the two adventurers passed another winter in the wilderness.

Several efforts were made in the en