"Must you go now, Colonel Boone?" asked Bob, who felt a sense of keen regret because their pleasant relations must be severed so soon.
"It is necessary that we lose no more time," came the reply; "already I fear that some who await us far beyond may be in difficulties, for the Indians were beginning to grow troublesome at the time I left. But we will come again. Here we shall hope to find a warm welcome when passing back and forth."
So the boys shook hands with each of the five buckskin-clad rangers. The young man, Simon Kenton, had interested them very much.
"He has the making of a second Colonel Boone in him," Bob said, as his eyes followed the little band of pioneers, walking along in Indian file, with Kenton bringing up the rear; "I wish he would only take a notion to join his fortunes with us here."
Then the figures of the five were hidden in the dense undergrowth. The last they saw of Daniel Boone was when he turned, before plunging into the thicket, to wave a hand to them in good-bye.
"What shall we do now?" asked Sandy, rather gloomily; for somehow he seemed to feel the departure of these valiant frontiersmen keenly, though he had only known them such a brief time.
"Stay around here until our folks come. We promised Colonel Boone not to follow after him, you remember," returned Bob, with whom his word was as good as his bond.
"But that may not be for some hours," protested the impatient Sandy; "because, you know, they were not near ready to start when we left camp; and then they will move much slower than we did, led by men who know every trail."
"But it ought to be enough for us to just sit here and look out on that grand river," remarked Bob, admiration in his eyes, as he turned them upon the silently flowing stream, still bank-full from the spring rains.
"It is a fine sight, I'm ready to say," Sandy admitted; "and after we get a cabin built we ought to be mighty well contented here, with fish to be had for the taking at the door, and game coming up almost asking to be shot."