Daniel Boone.
All the kinds of wild beasts that were natural to America—the stately elk, the timid deer, the antlered stag, the wild-cat, the bear, the panther, and the wolf—couched among the canes, or roamed over the rich grasses, which even beneath the thickest shade sprung luxuriantly out of the generous soil. The buffaloes cropped fearlessly the herbage, or browsed on the leaves of the reed, and were more frequent than cattle in the settlements of Carolina. Sometimes there were hundreds in a drove, and round the salt licks their numbers were amazing.
The summer in which, for the first time, a party of white men enjoyed the brilliancy of nature near and in the valley of the Elkhorn passed away in the occupations of exploring parties and the chase. But, one by one, Boone’s companions dropped off, till he was left alone with John Stewart. They jointly found unceasing delight in the wonders of the forest, till, one evening near the Kentucky River, they were taken prisoners by a band of Indians, wanderers like themselves. They escaped, and were joined by Boone’s brother; so that when Stewart was soon after killed by savages, Boone still had his brother to share with him the dangers and the attractions of the wilderness, the building and occupying of the first cottage in Kentucky.
In the spring of 1770 that brother returned to the settlements for horses and supplies of ammunition, leaving the renowned hunter “by himself, without bread, or salt, or even a horse or dog.” The idea of a beloved wife anxious for his safety, tinged his thoughts with sadness; but otherwise the cheerful, meditative man, careless of wealth, knowing the use of the rifle, not the plow, of a strong robust frame, in the vigorous health of early manhood, ignorant of books, but versed in the forest and in forest life, ever fond of tracking the deer on foot, away from men, yet in his disposition humane, generous, and gentle, was happy in the uninterrupted succession of sylvan pleasures. He held unconscious intercourse with beauty old as creation.
One calm summer’s evening, as he climbed a commanding ridge, and looked upon the remote, venerable mountains and the nearer ample plains, and caught a glimpse in the distance of the Ohio, which bounded the land of his affections with majestic grandeur, his heart exulted in the region he had discovered. All things were still. Not a breeze so much as shook a leaf. He kindled a fire near a fountain of sweet water, and feasted on the loin of a buck. He was no more alone than a bee among flowers, but communed familiarly with the whole universe of life. Nature was his intimate, and she responded to his intelligence.
For him the rocks and the fountains, the leaf and the blade of grass, had life; the cooling air laden with the wild perfume came to him as a friend; the dewy morning wrapped him in its embrace; the trees stood up gloriously round about him as so many myriads of companions. All forms wore the character of desire or peril. But how could he be afraid? Triumphing over danger, he knew no fear. The perpetual howling of the wolves by night round his cottage or his bivouac in the brake was his diversion; and by day he had joy in surveying the various species of animals that surrounded him. He loved the solitude better than the towered city or the hum of business.