ines of the Alleghanies to the distant waters of the
Mississippi. He now proceeded to make those remarkable solitary
explorations of Kentucky which have given him immortality--through
the valley of the Kentucky and the Licking, and along the
"Belle Riviere" (Ohio) as low as the falls. He visited the Big
Bone Lick and examined the wonderful fossil remains of the
mammoth found there. Along the great buffalo roads, worn several
feet below the surface of the ground, which led to the Blue
Licks, he saw with amazement and delight thousands of huge shaggy
buffalo gamboling, bellowing, and making the earth rumble beneath
the trampling of their hooves. One day, while upon a cliff near
the junction of the Kentucky and Dick's Rivers, he suddenly found
himself hemmed in by a party of Indians. Seizing his only chance
of escape, he leaped into the top of a maple tree growing beneath
the cliffs and, sliding to safety full sixty feet below, made his
escape, pursued by the sound of a chorus of guttural "Ughs" from
the dumbfounded savages.

Finally making his way back to the old camp, Daniel was rejoined
there by Squire on July 27, 1770. During the succeeding months,
much of their time was spent in hunting and prospecting in
Jessamine County, where two caves are still known as Boone's
caves. Eventually, when ammunition and supplies had once more run
low, Squire was compelled a second time to return to the
settlements. Perturbed after a time by Squire's failure to rejoin
him at the appointed time, Daniel started toward the settlements,
in search of him; and by a stroke of good fortune encountered him
along the trail. Overjoyed at this meeting (December, 1770) the
indomitable Boones once more plunged into the wilderness,
determined to conclude their explorations by examining the
regions watered by the Green and Cumberland rivers and their
tributaries. In after years, Gasper Mansker, the old German
scout, was accustomed to describe with comic effect the
consternation created among the Long Hunters, while hunting one
day on Green River, by a singular noise which they could not
explain. Stealthily slipping from tree to tree, Mansker finally
beheld with mingled surprise and amusement a hunter, bareheaded,
stretched flat upon his back on a deerskin spread on the ground,
singing merrily at the top of his voice! It was Daniel Boone,
joyously whiling away the solitary hours in singing one of his
favorite songs of the border. In March, 1771, aft