hed the land, which was thick with
stumps, hoed the corn that grew up among those stumps, and then,--as
there was no mill near,--he pounded it into meal for "johnny-cake."
He learned how to handle a gun quite as soon as he did a hoe. The
unfortunate deer or coon that saw young Boone coming toward him knew
that he had seen his best days, and that he would soon have the whole
Boone family sitting round him at the dinner-table.

[Illustration: BOONE POUNDING CORN.]

[Footnote 1: He was born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.]

[Footnote 2: He settled near Wilkesboro, on the banks of the Yadkin
River. See map in paragraph 150.]

147. Boone's wanderings in the western forests; his bear tree.--When
Daniel had grown to manhood, he wandered off with his gun on his
shoulder, and crossing the mountains, entered what is now the state
of Tennessee. That whole country was then a wilderness, full of
savage beasts and still more savage Indians; and Boone had many a
sharp fight with both.

More than a hundred and thirty years ago, he cut these words on a
beech-tree, still standing in Eastern Tennessee,[3]--"D. Boon
killed a bar on (this) tree in the year 1760." You will see if you
examine the tree, on which the words can still be read, that Boone
could not spell very well; but he could do what the bear minded a
good deal more,--he could shoot to kill.

[Illustration: BOONE'S BEAR TREE.]

[Footnote 3: The tree is still standing on the banks of Boone's Creek,
near Jonesboro, Washington County, Tennessee.]

148. Boone goes hunting in Kentucky; what kind of game he found there;
the Indians; the "Dark and Bloody Ground."--Nine years after he cut
his name on that tree, Boone, with a few companions, went to a new
part of the country. The Indians called it Kentucky. There he saw
buffalo, deer, bears, and wolves enough to satisfy the best hunter
in America.

This region was a kind of No Man's Land, because, though many tribes
of Indians roamed over it, none of them pretended to own it. These
bands of Indians were always fighting and trying to drive each other
out, so Kentucky was often called the "Dark and Bloody Ground." But,
much as the savages hated each other, they hated the white men, or
the "pale-faces," as they called them, still more.

149. Indian tricks; the owls.--The hunters were on the lookout for
these Indians, but the savages practised all kinds of tricks to get
the hunters near enough to shoot them. Sometimes Boone