“It is strange,” he said, “that I, who have spent much of my life in strife and most of it in the wilderness, should have a dread of leaving my bones in the forest. I can’t account for it, but I have the strongest desire to be buried near the habitations of men.”
It was with regret that the hunters turned their faces homewards. Each felt that it was their last hunt together, and perhaps the closing incident of their last meeting. Such, indeed, it proved to be.
The day after their return, Kenton and Hardy bade the old man a reluctant and affectionate farewell. He stood at his cabin door with eyes shaded and watched them out of sight. He went out of their lives, but in their distinguished after-careers each felt and acknowledged that he was a better man for having known Daniel Boone.
THE END
Transcriber’s Notes:
Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected.
Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.
Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved.