Many miles had been covered when the two hunters decided to rest, for night was at hand. Selecting a sheltered spot near a swiftly running brook, they were protected from peril from the rear of their camp by the huge walls of the hill which rose abruptly behind it. A fire was kindled with Peleg's flint and tinder and allowed to burn only long enough to roast the loin of deer which had been secured by a shot from the scout's rifle early that morning.
As soon as their supper had been eaten the fire was extinguished. The June air was warm and it was with a sense of comfort that Peleg seated himself upon the ground with his back against the protecting cliff. His companion had seldom spoken to him throughout their journey, and the pace at which they had been travelling had told more severely upon the younger hunter than upon Boone. Yet there was a feeling of deep comfort in Peleg's heart. The stars were twinkling in the sky, the gentle breeze that swept the treetops was softly musical in its sound, and beyond all these was the pleasure of being in the company of the man to whom he looked up as to no one else. All combined to make the young hunter happy.
To his surprise he found that Daniel Boone was willing to talk more freely than he ever had known him to do before.
"Yes," Daniel Boone was saying, "my grandfather came from England and settled in Pennsylvania. He had nine sons and ten daughters. My father he called Squire. I do not know just why, unless it was because he was more active than his brothers. I was born on the right bank of the Delaware in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, in 1734. Not long after my father married he moved to another part of the colony, and when I was a little lad he took us overland through Maryland and Virginia and settled at the headwaters of the Yadkin."
"A fine place, too, that is," said Peleg.
"Indeed it is," assented the scout, "but it was not for me. Somehow I seem destined to find the way for others rather than to be able to enjoy much of quiet and rest myself. It was on the first day of May, 1769, that I left my family in quest of the country of Kantuckee. Five men travelled with me, all of us relying upon the reports of John Finley, one of our number, who had been trading with the Indians there. He averred that he had found the most beautiful of all lands. I shall not soon forget the seventh day of June that year, when John Finley and I, from the top of an eminence, looked out upon the beautiful land of Kantuckee. Buffalo were more numerous than are cattle in the settlements. They fed upon the grass that grows marvellously on those plains. We saw hundreds in a drove, and the numbers about the salt springs were amazing. On the 22d of December, John Stuart and I were having a pleasing ramble. We had passed through a great forest and were amazed at the variety of the blossoms we saw. As for game, why it almost seemed to seek us out instead of making us the hunters. It was near sunset and we were near the Kantuckee River, when a number of Indians rushed out of a canebrake and made us their prisoners."
"How long did they keep you?"
"Seven days. We did our utmost not to show any uneasiness, and gradually they became less suspicious of us. But in the dead of the night of that seventh day, when we were lying by a large fire and all the others were asleep, I gently shook my companion, whispered my plan, and we left the camp without disturbing any one. My brother and another man, who had started after us to explore the country, found the camp of our party, but it had been plundered and the other men in our band had fled. Strangely enough, we soon came upon one another in the forest. You may be sure that this meeting with my brother was most welcome. The man who was with him, however, soon went on a private excursion and was attacked and killed by wolves. John Stuart was killed by the Indians. There we were in a howling wilderness, hundreds of miles from our families and surrounded by Indians who were determined to kill us. All through that winter we had no trouble, however, and on the first of the following May my brother went home for a new recruit of horses and ammunition, leaving me alone. I had been without bread for a year; I had no salt nor sugar, and not even a horse or a dog for company.
"I knew I must not lament, however, and accordingly I undertook a tour which I thought might be of benefit to others who, I had no doubt, soon would follow me. Often I heard the hideous yells of the savages searching for me. On the 27th of July my brother returned, and together we went as far as the Cumberland River, scouting through that part of the country and giving names to the different rivers. In the following March I went back to my family, determined to bring them as soon as possible, even at the risk of life and fortune, to make a home in Kantuckee, which I esteemed a second Paradise.
"You know, my lad, how I sold my land on the Yadkin and disposed of such goods as we could not carry with us, and how with five other families we started on the 25th of September to journey to Kantuckee. You were one of us at that time.