ed as a hatchet. On the left was the
hunting-knife, powder-horn, bullet-pouch, and other appendages
indispensable for a hunter. Each person bore his trusty rifle, and as
the party made its toilsome way amid the shrubs, and over the logs and
loose shrubs, that accident had thrown upon the obscure trail they were
following, each man gave a sharp lookout, as though danger, or a lurking
enemy were near. Their garments were soiled and rent; the unavoidable
result of long travel and exposure to the heavy rains which had fallen,
the weather having been stormy and uncomfortable, and they had traversed
a mountainous wilderness for several hundred miles. The leader of the
party was of full size, with a hardy, robust, sinewy frame, and keen
piercing hazel eyes, that glanced with quickness at every object as they
passed on, now cast forward in the direction they were travelling, for
signs of an old trail, and in the next moment directed askance into the
dense forest or the deep ravine, as if watching some concealed enemy.
The reader will recognise in this man, the pioneer Boone at the head of
his companions."

The peculiar character of these men is developed in the fact, that,
rapidly descending the western declivity of the mountains, they came to
a beautiful meadow upon the banks of a little stream now called Red
River. Here they reared their hut, and here they remained in apparently
luxurious idleness all the summer; and here Daniel Boone remained all of
the ensuing winter. Their object could scarcely have been to obtain
furs, for they could not transport them across the mountains. There were
in the vicinity quite a number of salt springs which the animals of the
forest frequented in immense numbers. In the brief account which Boone
gives of these long months, he simply says:

"In this forest, the habitation of beasts of every kind natural to
America, we practised hunting with great success until the twenty-second
day of December following."

Bears, buffalo and deer were mainly the large game which fell before
their rifles. Water-fowl, and also land birds of almost every variety,
were found in great profusion. It must have been a strange life which
these six men experienced during these seven months in the camp on the
silent waters of the Red River. No Indians were seen, and no traces of
them were discovered through this period. The hunters made several long
excursions in various directions, apparently examining the country in