est wilderness, when
the storm raged most fiercely, although but a child he felt peaceful,
happy, and entirely at home.

About the year 1748 (the date is somewhat uncertain), Squire Boone, with
his family, emigrated seven hundred miles farther south and west to a
place called Holman's Ford on the Yadkin river, in North Carolina. The
Yadkin is a small stream in the north-west part of the State. A hundred
years ago this was indeed a howling wilderness. It is difficult to
imagine what could have induced the father of a family to abandon the
comparatively safe and prosperous settlements on the banks of the
Delaware, to plunge into the wilderness of these pathless solitudes,
several hundred miles from the Atlantic coast. Daniel was then about
sixteen years of age.

Of the incidents of their long journey through the wood--on foot, with
possibly a few pack horses, for there were no wagon-roads whatever--we
have no record. The journey must probably have occupied several weeks,
occasionally cheered by sunshine, and again drenched by storms. There
were nine children in the family. At the close of the weary pilgrimage
of a day, through such narrow trails as that which the Indian or the
buffalo had made through the forest, or over the prairies, they were
compelled to build a cabin at night, with logs and the bark of trees to
shelter them from the wind and rain, and at the camp-fire to cook the
game which they had shot during the day. We can imagine that this
journey must have been a season of unspeakable delight to Daniel Boone.
Alike at home with the rifle and the hatchet, never for a moment
bewildered, or losing his self-possession, he could, even unaided, at
any hour, rear a sheltering hut for his mother and his sisters, before
which the camp-fire would blaze cheerily, and their hunger would be
appeased by the choicest viands from the game which his rifle had
procured.

The spirit of adventure is so strong in most human hearts which
luxurious indulgence has not enervated, that it is not improbable that
this family enjoyed far more in this romantic excursion through an
unexplored wilderness, than those now enjoy who in a few hours traverse
the same distance in the smooth rolling rail-cars. Indeed fancy can
paint many scenes of picturesque beauty which we know that the reality
must have surpassed.

It is the close of a lovely day. A gentle breeze sweeps through the
tree-tops from the north-west. The trail through the day has