but little less skill, together with another
adventurer; the two had travelled through the immense wilderness, partly
to explore it and partly with the hope of finding the original
adventurers, which they finally succeeded in doing more by good luck
than design. Soon afterwards Boon's companion in his first short
captivity was again surprised by the Indians, and this time was
slain[13]--the first of the thousands of human beings with whose
life-blood Kentucky was bought. The attack was entirely unprovoked. The
Indians had wantonly shed the first blood. The land belonged to no one
tribe, but was hunted over by all, each feeling jealous of every other
intruder; they attacked the whites, not because the whites had wronged
them, but because their invariable policy was to kill any strangers on
any grounds over which they themselves ever hunted, no matter what man
had the best right thereto. The Kentucky hunters were promptly taught
that in this no-man's-land, teeming with game and lacking even a
solitary human habitation, every Indian must be regarded as a foe.

The man who had accompanied Squire Boon was terrified by the presence of
the Indians, and now returned to the settlements. The two brothers
remained alone on their hunting-grounds throughout the winter, living in
a little cabin. About the first of May Squire set off alone to the
settlements to procure horses and ammunition. For three months Daniel
Boon remained absolutely alone in the wilderness, without salt, sugar,
or flour, and without the companionship of so much as a horse or a
dog.[14] But the solitude-loving hunter, dauntless and self-reliant,
enjoyed to the full his wild, lonely life; he passed his days hunting
and exploring, wandering hither and thither over the country, while at
night he lay off in the canebrakes or thickets, without a fire, so as
not to attract the Indians. Of the latter he saw many signs, and they
sometimes came to his camp, but his sleepless wariness enabled him to
avoid capture. Late in July his brother returned, and met him according
to appointment at the old camp. Other hunters also now came into the
Kentucky wilderness, and Boon joined a small party of them for a short
time. Such a party of hunters is always glad to have any thing wherewith
to break the irksome monotony of the long evenings passed round the camp
fire; and a book or a greasy pack of cards was as welcome in a camp of
Kentucky riflemen in 1770 as it is to a party of Roc