u Salado, with no friend near me more faithful
than my rifle. With a plentiful supply of dry pine logs on the fire, and
its cheerful blaze streaming far up into the sky, illuminating the
valley far and near, I would sit enjoying the genial warmth, and watch
the blue smoke as it curled upward, building castles in its vapory
wreaths. Scarcely did I ever wish to change such hours of freedom for
all the luxuries of civilized life; and, unnatural and extraordinary as
it may appear, yet such are the fascinations of the life of the mountain
hunter, that I believe that not one instance could be adduced of even
the most polished and civilized of men, who had once tasted the sweets
of its attendant liberty, and freedom from every worldly care, not
regretting to exchange them for the monotonous life of the settlements,
and not sighing and sighing again for its pleasures and allurements.

"A hunter's camp in the Rocky Mountains, is quite a picture. It is
invariably made in a picturesque locality, for, like the Indian, the
white hunter has an eye to the beautiful. Nothing can be more social and
cheering than the welcome blaze of the camp-fire on a cold winter's
night, and nothing more amusing or entertaining, if not instructive,
than the rough conversation of the simple-minded mountaineers, whose
nearly daily task is all of exciting adventure, since their whole
existence is spent in scenes of peril and privation. Consequently the
narration is a tale of thrilling accidents, and hair-breadth escapes,
which, though simple matter-of-fact to them, appears a startling romance
to those unacquainted with the lives led by those men, who, with the sky
for a roof, and their rifles to supply them with food and clothing, call
no man lord or master, and are as free as the game they follow."

There are many events which occurred in the lives of Boone and his
companions, which would seem absolutely incredible were they not
sustained by evidence beyond dispute. Boone and Stewart were in a
boundless, pathless, wilderness of forests, mountains, rivers and lakes.
Their camp could not be reached from the settlements, but by a journey
of many weeks, apparently without the smallest clue to its location. And
yet the younger brother of Boone, upon whom had been conferred his
father's singular baptismal name of Squire, set out with a companion to
cross the mountains, in search of Daniel. One day in the latter part of
January, Boone and Stewart were quite ala