THE
BOY HUNTERS OF KENTUCKY.
CHAPTER I.
A YOUNG PIONEER.
There was no happier boy in all Kentucky than Jack Gedney on the morning that completed the first twelve years of his life, for on that day his father presented him with a fine rifle.
Now, you must know that some of the best riflemen in the world have been born and reared in Kentucky, where the early settlers had to fight not only the wild beasts, but the fierce red men. The battles between the Indians and pioneers were so many that Kentucky came to be known as the Dark and Bloody Ground.
Some of you may have heard that the most famous pioneer in American history was Daniel Boone, who entered all alone the vast wilderness south of the Ohio, and spent many months there before the Revolution broke out. The emigrants began flocking thither as soon as it became known that the soil of Kentucky was rich, and that the woods abounded with game.
Among those who went thither, towards the close of the last century, were Thomas Gedney and his wife Abigail. With a dozen other families, they floated down the Ohio in a flat boat, until a short distance below the mouth of the Licking, when they landed, and, taking the boat apart, used the material in building their cabins.
It happened at that period that there was less trouble than usual with the red men. Some of the settlers believed that the Indians, finding themselves unable to stay the tide of immigration that was pouring over the west, would move deeper into the solitudes which stretched beyond the Mississippi. Instead of putting up their cabins close together, a part of the pioneers pushed farther into the woods, and began their houses where they found better sites. Most of them were near natural "clearings," where the fertile soil was easily made ready for the corn and vegetables, without the hard work of cutting down the trees and clearing out the stumps.
Thomas Gedney and his wife were among those who went farther than the spot where they landed from the flat boat. Indeed, they pushed deeper into the woods than any one else who helped to found the little settlement that was planted a hundred years ago on the southern bank of the Ohio. Their nearest neighbours were the members of the Burton family, who lived a mile to the eastward, while a mile farther in that direction were the little group of cabins that marked the beginning of one of the most prosperous towns of to-day in Kentucky.
Mr. Gedney was fortunate enough to find a clearing of an acre in extent, with a small stream running near. Since he had helped his neighbours to put up their cabins, they in return gave him such aid that in a few days he had a strong, comfortable structure of logs, into which he moved with his wife and only child, Jack, then but six years old.