y
were attacked by Indians, and driven back--two of Boone's own sons being
slain. In 1775, however, he made another attempt; and this attempt was
successful. The Indians attacked the newcomers; but by this time the
parties of would-be settlers were sufficiently numerous to hold their
own. They beat back the Indians, and built rough little hamlets,
surrounded by log stockades, at Boonesborough and Harrodsburg; and the
permanent settlement of Kentucky had begun.

The next few years were passed by Boone amid unending Indian conflicts.
He was a leader among the settlers, both in peace and in war. At one
time he represented them in the House of Burgesses of Virginia; at
another time he was a member of the first little Kentucky parliament
itself; and he became a colonel of the frontier militia. He tilled the
land, and he chopped the trees himself; he helped to build the cabins
and stockades with his own hands, wielding the longhandled, light-headed
frontier ax as skilfully as other frontiersmen. His main business was
that of surveyor, for his knowledge of the country, and his ability to
travel through it, in spite of the danger from Indians, created much
demand for his services among people who wished to lay off tracts of
wild land for their own future use. But whatever he did, and wherever he
went, he had to be sleeplessly on the lookout for his Indian foes. When
he and his fellows tilled the stump-dotted fields of corn, one or more
of the party were always on guard, with weapon at the ready, for fear of
lurking savages. When he went to the House of Burgesses he carried his
long rifle, and traversed roads not a mile of which was free from the
danger of Indian attack. The settlements in the early years depended
exclusively upon game for their meat, and Boone was the mightiest of all
the hunters, so that upon him devolved the task of keeping his people
supplied. He killed many buffaloes, and pickled the buffalo beef for
use in winter. He killed great numbers of black bear, and made bacon of
them, precisely as if they had been hogs. The common game were deer and
elk. At that time none of the hunters of Kentucky would waste a shot on
anything so small as a prairie-chicken or wild duck; but they sometimes
killed geese and swans when they came south in winter and lit on the
rivers.

But whenever Boone went into the woods after game, he had perpetually to
keep watch lest he himself might be hunted in turn. He never lay in wait
at