AUDUBON AND BOONE. 167 



In this year a bold and enterprising man, who is only 

 known as John Finley, with a small party of restless and 

 reckless persons like himself, did penetrate the very heart of 

 the land, and returning to North Carolina with the story of 

 this new Eden, fired the spirit of adventure wherever he 

 went. 



By this time, young Boone had married the daughter of a 

 brave and upright borderer. In 1769 he left his little family, 

 and with this same John Finley for a guide, and accompanied 

 by a small party in addition, he set off for the new Dorado. 

 His restless spirit yearned for solitudes more vast and wild 

 than any he had yet known. It was only in the excitement 

 of action, constant and unresting, that he could live. 



From this time the history of the young hunter is well 

 known. A little over one month, from the first of May to the 

 seventh of June, 1769, the party of Boone, consisting of five 

 men beside himself, arrived on what was then called Red 

 river, after having crossed the mountains and penetrated, on 

 foot, full five hundred miles, the untracked wilderness. Here 

 they formed a camp near where the guide, John Finley, had 

 formerly camped when trapping and trading with the Indians 

 on his last expedition. 



They remained here for some time to recruit, and each day 

 the young Boone wandered farther from the camp towards 

 the west. He made an expedition of several days at last, 

 and having found a much more convenient and lovely location, 

 returned, broke up his camp and moved on to this place. 



From this camp he made even wider excursions than before, 

 and it was upon one of these when, alone, he came out upon 

 a mountain steppe, and saw stretched beneath him, as far as 

 eye could reach, the wondrous vision of Kentucky. Miles 

 and miles away the fair and glorious land extended in flowery 

 undulating plains, along which, here and there, stretched 

 dark lines of heavy forest, above which, in thin squadrons, 

 the pale morning mist was lifting slowly on the rising breath 



