e given, as the boy afterwards declared, with entire calmness, and as
if he were giving instructions about ordinary business. He soon
recovered, broke up his camp, and returned homeward without the usual
signs of a winter's hunt."

One writer says Colonel Boone went on a trapping excursion up the Grand
River. This stream rises in the southern part of Iowa, and flows in a
southerly course into the Missouri. He was entirely alone. Paddling his
canoe up the lonely banks of the Missouri, he entered the Grand River,
and established his camp in a silent sheltered cove, where an
experienced hunter would with difficulty find it.

Here he first laid in his supply of venison, turkeys, and bear's meat,
and then commenced his trapping operation, where no sound of his rifle
would disturb the beavers and no smell of gunpowder would excite their
alarm. Every morning he took the circuit of his traps, visiting them all
in turn. Much to his alarm, he one morning encountered a large
encampment of Indians in his vicinity, engaged in hunting. He
immediately retreated to his camp and secreted himself. Fortunately for
him, quite a deep snow fell that night, which covered his traps. But
this same snow prevented him from leaving his camp, lest his footprints
should be discovered. For twenty days he continued thus secreted,
occasionally, at midnight, venturing to cook a little food, when there
was no danger that the smoke of his fire would reveal his retreat. At
length the enemy departed, and he was released from his long
imprisonment. He subsequently stated that never in his life had he felt
so much anxiety for so long a period, lest the Indians should discover
his traps and search out his camp.

It seems that the object of Colonel Boone in these long hunting
excursions was to obtain furs that he might pay the debts which he still
owed in Kentucky. A man of less tender conscience would no longer have
troubled himself about them. He was far removed from any importunity on
the part of his creditors, or from any annoyance through the law. Still
his debts caused him much solicitude, and he could not rest in peace
until they were fully paid.

After two or three seasons of this energetic hunting, Colonel Boone
succeeded in obtaining a sufficient quantity of furs to enable him, by
their sale, to pay all his debts. With this object in view, he set out
on his long journey of several hundred miles, through an almost
trackless wilderness, to Kentucky.