put on their war paint, and
descended on the small frontier homes with full fury.

As the French came down from the north disputing this new land with the
English settlers they made the Indians their allies, and the border
warfare grew more bitter. Finally the English general Braddock decided
to march west himself and try to teach the French and Indians a lesson.

It was not likely that such a sturdy youth as Daniel Boone could resist
the desire to march against the French. The expedition promised him a
chance to push farther into that wild western country, if nothing else,
and so he joined Braddock's small army with about a hundred other North
Carolina frontiersmen. Daniel was made chief wagoner and blacksmith.

General Braddock knew nothing of Indian warfare, and the little
expedition proved an easy target for their enemies. The cumbersome and
heavily laden baggage wagons were a great handicap to them. The English
regulars, the frontiersmen, and the baggage train were caught in the
deep ravine of Turtle Creek, a few miles away from Pittsburg, and
suddenly set upon by ambushed Indians commanded by French officers. Many
of the drivers, caught in the trap, were killed. Daniel, however,
contrived to cut the traces of his team, and mounting one of the horses,
escaped down and out of the ravine under a fire of shot and arrows.

The Indians pursued the fugitives, laying waste the borders of
Pennsylvania and Virginia, but not following as far south as the Yadkin.
Daniel reached home, and set to work to strengthen the settlement's ties
of friendship with the two tribes of the neighborhood, the Catawbas and
the Cherokees. With their aid he was able to provide sufficient
safeguard against the Northern tribes.

[Illustration: DANIEL BOONE'S FIRST VIEW OF KENTUCKY]

While he was with Braddock's army Daniel had met a man named John
Finley, who fired his imagination with stories of his wanderings in the
west. He was a fur-trader, and his passion for hunting had already led
him into the Kentucky wilderness as far as the Falls of the Ohio River,
where Louisville now stands. He had had countless adventures with
Indians, with wild animals, and with the perils of stream and forest.
Young Boone drank in the stories eagerly, and resolved that some day he
would himself go out to explore the west.

Daniel had now come to manhood. For a time he stayed in the Yadkin
Valley, but the call to follow the trail of the buffaloes and the
west