ward moving Shawnese was clear in his ears. Dangerous days of Indian
fighting on the border held him close at home, but the time came when he
could resist the call no longer. He left home and took his way through
the uncharted hills and forests to Kentucky.

At times he fought for his life with roving Indians, and at times he
captained some small English garrison beset by the same red men. He won
great renown as an Indian fighter, as a hunter, as an intrepid explorer.
The little town of Boonesborough was named for him, and he defended it
through a long and perilous siege. But so soon as men came and built
homes and staked out farms Boone must be moving west. What he sought was
the wilderness; he was happiest in the great recesses of the woods, or
blazing his own trail across untrodden prairies.

He led the vanguard into North Carolina, into West Virginia, into
Kentucky, and then into Missouri. He is a splendid example of the man
who must go first to prepare the way for others, in every way the best
type of those brave, hardy pioneers who were claiming the continent for
English-speaking people. The things he had most desired as a boy he most
desired in manhood, the rough life of a new country and the struggle to
overcome the perils of the wild.

VIII

John Paul Jones

The Boy of the Atlantic: 1747-1792

The summer afternoon was fair, and the waves that rolled upon the north
shore of Solway Firth in the western Lowlands of Scotland were calm and
even. But the tide was coming in, and inch by inch was covering the
causeway that led from shore to a high rock some hundred yards away. The
rock was bare of vegetation, and sheer on the landward side, but on the
face toward the sea were rough jutting points that would give a climber
certain footholds, and near the top smooth ledges.

On one or two of these ledges sea-gulls had built their nests, tucked in
under projecting points where they would be sheltered from wind and
rain. Now the gulls would sweep in from sea, curving in great circles
until they reached their homes, and then would sit on the ledge calling
to their mates across the water. Except for the cries of the gulls,
however, the rock was very quiet. The lazy regular beat of the waves
about its base was very soothing. On the longest ledge, below the
sea-gulls' nests, lay a boy about twelve years old, sound asleep, his
face turned toward the ocean.

Either the gulls' cries or the sun, now slanting in th