1 62 The Winning of the West 



and as soon as he came of age he married, built a 

 log hut, and made a clearing, whereon to farm like 

 the rest of his backwoods neighbors. They all tilled 

 their own clearings, guiding the plow among the 

 charred stumps left when the trees were chopped 

 down and the land burned over, and they were all, 

 as a matter of course, hunters. With Boone hunt- 

 ing and exploration were passions, and the lonely 

 life of the wilderness, with its bold, wild freedom, 

 the only existence for which he really cared. He 

 was a tall, spare, sinewy man, with eyes like an 

 eagle's, and muscles that never tired; the toil and 

 hardship of his life made no impress on his iron 

 frame, unhurt by intemperance of any kind; and he 

 lived for eighty-six years, a backwoods hunter to 

 the end of his days. His thoughtful, quiet, pleas- 

 ant face, so often portrayed, is familiaf to every 

 one; it was the face of a man who never blustered 

 or bullied, who would neither inflict nor suffer any 

 wrong, and who had a limitless fund of fortitude, 

 endurance, and indomitable resolution upon which 

 to draw when fortune proved adverse. His self- 

 command and patience, his daring, restless love of 

 adventure, and, in time of danger, his absolute trust 

 in his own powers and resources, all combined to 

 render him peculiarly fitted to follow the career 

 of which he was so fond. 



Boone hunted on the Western waters at an early 

 date. In the valley of Boone's Creek, a tributary 

 of the Watauga, there is a beech tree still standing, 

 on which can be faintly traced an inscription setting 



