uld have considered a model head--with a forehead
peculiarly high, noble and bold, thin compressed lips, a mild clear blue
eye, a large and prominent chin and a general expression of countenance
in which fearlessness and courage sat enthroned and which told the
beholder at a glance what he had been and was formed to be." In
criticizing the various portraits of Daniel, the same writer says: "They
want the high port and noble daring of his countenance.... Never was
old age more green, or gray hairs more graceful. His high, calm, bold
forehead seemed converted by years into iron."

Although we are indebted to these and other early chroniclers for
many details of Boone's life, there was one event which none of his
biographers has related; yet we know that it must have taken place.
Even the bare indication of it is found only in the narrative of the
adventures of two other explorers.

It was in the winter of 1803 that these two men came to Boone's
Settlement, as La Charette was now generally called. They had planned to
make their winter camp there, for in the spring, when the Missouri rose
to the flood, they and their company of frontiersmen were to take their
way up that uncharted stream and over plains and mountains in quest
of the Pacific Ocean. They were refused permission by the Spanish
authorities to camp at Boone's Settlement; so they lay through the
winter some forty miles distant on the Illinois side of the Mississippi,
across from the mouth of the Missouri. Since the records are silent, we
are free to picture as we choose their coming to the settlement during
the winter and again in the spring, for we know that they came.

We can imagine, for instance, the stir they made in La Charette on some
sparkling day when the frost bit and the crusty snow sent up a dancing
haze of diamond points. We can see the friendly French habitants staring
after the two young leaders and their men--all mere boys, though they
were also husky, seasoned frontiersmen--with their bronzed faces of
English cast, as in their gayly fringed deerskins they swaggered through
the hamlet to pay their respects to the Syndic. We may think of that
dignitary as smoking his pipe before his fireplace, perhaps; or making
out, in his fantastic spelling, a record of his primitive court--for
instance, that he had on that day given Pierre a dozen hickory thwacks,
"well laid on," for starting a brawl with Antoine, and had bestowed the
same upon Antoine for con