y of colonists for
the dangerous and delectable land. The dishonesty practiced by Lord
Granville's agents in the matter of deeds had made it difficult for
Daniel and his friends to dispose of their acreage. When at last in
the spring of 1773 the Wanderer was prepared to depart, he was again
delayed; this time by the arrival of a little son to whom was given the
name of John. By September, however, even this latest addition to the
party was ready for travel; and that month saw the Boones with a small
caravan of families journeying towards Powell's Valley, whence the
Warrior's Path took its way through Cumberland Gap. At this point on the
march they were to be joined by William Russell, a famous pioneer, from
the Clinch River, with his family and a few neighbors, and by some
of Rebecca Boone's kinsmen, the Bryans, from the lower Yadkin, with a
company of forty men.

Of Rebecca Boone history tells us too little--only that she was born a
Bryan, was of low stature and dark eyed, that she bore her husband
ten children, and lived beside him to old age. Except on his hunts and
explorations, she went with him from one cabined home to another, always
deeper into the wilds. There are no portraits of her. We can see her
only as a shadowy figure moving along the wilderness trails beside the
man who accepted his destiny of God to be a way-shower for those of
lesser faith.

"He tires not forever on his leagues of march Because her feet are set
to his footprints, And the gleam of her bare hand slants across his
shoulder."

Boone halted his company on Walden Mountain over Powell's Valley to
await the Bryan contingent and dispatched two young men under the
leadership of his son James, then in his seventeenth year, to notify
Russell of the party's arrival. As the boys were returning with
Russell's son, also a stripling, two of his slaves, and some white
laborers, they missed the path and went into camp for the night. When
dawn broke, disclosing the sleepers, a small war band of Shawanoes, who
had been spying on Boone and his party, fell upon them and slaughtered
them. Only one of Russell's slaves and a laborer escaped. The tragedy
seems augmented by the fact that the point where the boys lost the
trail and made their night quarters was hardly three miles from the main
camp--to which an hour later came the two survivors with their gloomy
tidings. Terror now took hold of the little band of emigrants, and
there were loud outcries for tur