rament and behavior, for he was a grave, silent
man, very cold and wary, with a sort of savage calm. He was well versed
in their character, and knew how to play upon their vanity. One of the
few things he seems to have told of his captivity was that when they
asked him to take part in their shooting matches he beat them just often
enough to show them his wonderful skill with the rifle, and then allowed
them the pleasure of beating such a splendid shot as he had proved
himself. But probably he had other engaging qualities, or so it appeared
when the Indians took him with them to Detroit. The British commandant
offered them a ransom of a hundred pounds for him, while several other
Englishmen, who liked and pitied him, pressed him to take money and
other favors from them. Boone stoically refused because he could never
hope to make any return to them, and his red brethren refused because
they loved Boone too well to part with him at any price, and they took
him back to Old Chillicothe with them.

[Illustration: Daniel Boone shooting with the Indians 067]

He never betrayed the anxiety for his wife and children that constantly
tormented him, for fear of rousing the suspicions of the Indians; but
when he reached Old Chillicothe, and found a large party painted and
ready to take the warpath in a new attack upon Boones-borough, he could
bear it no longer. He showed no sign of his misery, however; he joined
the Indians in all their sports as before, but he was always watching
for some chance to escape, and one morning in the middle of June he
stole away from his captors. He made his way a hundred and sixty miles
through the woods, and on the ninth day entered Boonesborough, faint
with the fast which he had broken but once in his long flight, to find
that he had been given up for dead and his family had gone back to North
Carolina.

Boone spent the rest of his days fighting wild men and hunting wild
beasts in Kentucky, until both were well-nigh gone and the tamer life
of civilization pressed closer about him. Then he set out for Missouri,
where he found himself again in the wilderness, and dwelt there in his
beloved solitude till he died. Nothing ever moved him so much as the
memoir which a young man wrote down for him and had printed. He was fond
of having it read to him (for he could not read any more than he could
write), and he would cry out in delight over it, "All true; not a lie
in it!" But it is recorded that he once al