234 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 



on the site of the present town of Harrodsburg. This ia 

 about the extent of the chronology bearing upon that early 

 period of his history. 



But for years before this period the name of the stalwart 

 young hunter was familiar along the borders, and associated 

 with that of Boone in many a feat of self-denying hardihood 

 and generous chivalry. He was tall, strong, modest and 

 simple. He had read no book but that of nature, knew no 

 art but wood-craft, hated nothing on earth but an Indian and 

 a pole-cat, and never said, "Boys, you do it!" but, "Boys, 

 come on !" His rifle was the longest, the heaviest and the 

 surest ; his calm, frank eye was never at a fault to mark the 

 distant game, to meet the gaze of deadly foe, or smile back 

 truth to friend. His arm, resistless, as his tongue was slow. 

 How can you make a hero out of a block so rough as this ? 

 We had nothing to do with the manufacture, God made him 

 a hero, if he was one ! 



The unwritten history of that time tells many a touching 

 narrative of the deeds of this young hunter; his skill on the 

 war-trail, his vigilance and his wonderful powers of endurance, 

 soon made him one of the chief supports of the feeble and shat- 

 tered settlements, which then, in the name of God and civi- 

 lization, dared presume to hold and occupy this wide land, 

 which for its richness and its beauty had for many centuries 

 been the golden apple of dispute between powerful tribes of 

 savages, on the North and the South. The hardiness and 

 simplicity of his habits, his fresh and unbroken constitution, 

 his great frame, endowed with a natural strength remarkable, 

 everywhere gave him supremacy even over those border sons 

 of Anak, among whom he seemed to move as peer. 



Such were his habits of incessant activity, and so cool his 

 self-reliance, that he never waited for companions, on the 

 longest and most dangerous of his expeditions. He would often 

 be gone for weeks, and even months together, no one knew 

 whither, or for what end, and the first thing heard of him 



