r camp-fire wait until the returning sun
invited them to resume their journey. Or if they came to some of
nature's favored haunts, where Eden-like attractions were spread around
them, on the borders of the lake, by the banks of the stream, or beneath
the brow of the mountain, they would tarry for a few days, reveling in
delights, which they both had the taste to appreciate.

In this way, they very thoroughly explored the upper valley of the
Cumberland river. For some reason not given, they preferred to return
north several hundred miles to the Kentucky river, as the seat of their
contemplated settlement. The head waters of this stream are near those
of the Cumberland. It however flows through the very heart of Kentucky,
till it enters the Ohio river, midway between the present cities of
Cincinnati and Louisville. It was in the month of March that they
reached the Kentucky river on their return. For some time they wandered
along its banks searching for the more suitable situation for the
location of a colony.

"The exemption of these men," said W. H. Bogart, "from assault by the
Indians during all this long period of seven months, in which, armed and
on horseback, they seem to have roamed just where they chose, is most
wonderful. It has something about it which seems like a special
interposition of Providence, beyond the ordinary guardianship over the
progress of man. On the safety of these men rested the hope of a nation.
A very distinguished authority has declared, that without Boone, the
settlements could not have been upheld and the conquest of Kentucky
would have been reserved for the emigrants of the nineteenth century."

Boone having now, after an absence of nearly two years, apparently
accomplished the great object of his mission; having, after the most
careful and extensive exploration, selected such a spot as he deemed
most attractive for the future home of his family, decided to return to
the Yadkin and make preparations for their emigration across the
mountains. To us now, such a movement seems to indicate an almost insane
boldness and recklessness. To take wife and children into a pathless
wilderness filled with unfriendly savages, five hundred miles from any
of the settlements of civilization, would seem to invite death. A
family could not long be concealed. Their discovery by the Indians
would be almost the certain precursor of their destruction. Boone, in
his autobiography, says in allusion to this haza