fluence were willing to trust adventurous
enterprises to his care; and his success as an explorer, his skill as a
hunter, and his prowess as an Indian fighter, enabled him to bring these
enterprises to a successful conclusion, and in some degree to control
the wild spirits associated with him.

Boon's expeditions into the edges of the wilderness whetted his appetite
for the unknown. He had heard of great hunting-grounds in the far
interior from a stray hunter and Indian trader,[10] who had himself seen
them, and on May 1, 1769, he left his home on the Yadkin "to wander
through the wilderness of America in quest of the country of
Kentucky."[11] He was accompanied by five other men, including his
informant, and struck out towards the northwest, through the tangled
mass of rugged mountains and gloomy forests. During five weeks of severe
toil the little band journeyed through vast solitudes, whose utter
loneliness can with difficulty be understood by those who have not
themselves dwelt and hunted in primaeval mountain forests. Then, early in
June, the adventurers broke through the interminable wastes of dim
woodland, and stood on the threshold of the beautiful blue-grass region
of Kentucky; a land of running waters, of groves and glades, of
prairies, cane-brakes, and stretches of lofty forest. It was teeming
with game. The shaggy-maned herds of unwieldy buffalo--the bison as they
should be called--had beaten out broad roads through the forest, and had
furrowed the prairies with trails along which they had travelled for
countless generations. The round-horned elk, with spreading, massive
antlers, the lordliest of the deer tribe throughout the world, abounded,
and like the buffalo travelled in bands not only through the woods but
also across the reaches of waving grass land. The deer were
extraordinarily numerous, and so were bears, while wolves and panthers
were plentiful.

Wherever there was a salt spring the country was fairly thronged with
wild beasts of many kinds. For six months Boon and his companions
enjoyed such hunting as had hardly fallen to men of their race since the
Germans came out of the Hercynian forest.[12]

In December, however, they were attacked by Indians. Boon and a
companion were captured; and when they escaped they found their camp
broken up, and the rest of the party scattered and gone home. About this
time they were joined by Squire Boon, the brother of the great hunter,
and himself a woodsman of