"They will not turn out for us," said Finley; "and If we do not conduct exactly right, we shall be crushed to death."
The inexperienced adventurers bade him direct them in the emergency. Just as the front of the phalanx was within short rifle distance, he discharged his rifle and brought down one of the bulls, that seemed to be a file leader, by a ball between the horns. The unwieldy animal fell. The mass raised a deafening sort of bellow, and became arrested, as if transfixed to the spot. A momentary confusion of the mass behind ensued. But, borne along by the pressure of the multitudes still in the rear, there was a gradual parting of the herd direct from the front, where the fallen buffalo lay. The disruption once made, the chasm broadened, until when the wings passed the travellers, they were thirty yards from the divisions on either hand. To prevent the masses yet behind from closing their lines, Finley took the rifle of one of his companions, and levelled another. This changed the pace of the animals to a rout. The last masses soon thundered by, and left them gazing in astonishment, not unmixed with joy, in realizing their escape, "Job of Uz," exclaimed Boone, "had not larger droves of cattle than we. In fact, we seem to have had in this instance an abundance to a fault."
As this was an era in their adventures, and an omen of the abundance of the vast regions of forests which they had descried from the summits of the mountains, they halted, made a camp, and skinned the animals, preserving the skins, fat, tongues, and choice pieces. No epicures ever feasted higher than these athletic and hungry hunters, as they sat around their evening fire, and commented upon the ease with which their wants would be supplied in a country thus abounding with such animals.
After feasting again in the morning on the spoils of the preceding day, and packing such parts of the animals as their probable necessities suggested, they commenced their march; and in no great distance reached Red river, a branch of the Cumberland. They followed the meanders of this river for some miles, until they reached, on the 7th day of June, Finley's former station, where his preceding explorations of the western country had terminated.
Their journey to this point had lasted more than a month; and though the circumstances in which they had made it, had been generally auspicious, so long a route through unknown forests, and over precipitous mountains, hitherto untrodden by white men, could not but have been fatiguing in the extreme. None but such spirits could have sustained their hardships without a purpose to turn back, and leave their exploration unaccomplished.
They resolved in this place to encamp, and remain for a time sufficient to recruit themselves for other expeditions and discoveries. The weather had been for some time past, and still remained, rainy and unpleasant; and it became necessary that their station should be of such a construction, as to secure them a dry sleeping place from the rain. The game was so abundant, that they found it a pleasure, rather than a difficulty, to supply themselves with food. The buffaloes were seen like herds of cattle, dispersed among the cane-brakes, or feeding on the grass, or ruminating in the shade. Their skins were of great utility, in furnishing them with moccasins, and many necessary articles indispensable to their comfortable subsistence at their station.
What struck them with unfailing pleasure was, to observe the soil, in general, of a fertility without example on the other side of the mountains. From an eminence in the vicinity of their station, they could see, as far as vision could extend, the beautiful country of Kentucky. They remarked with astonishment the tall, straight trees, shading the exuberant soil, wholly clear from any other underbrush than the rich cane-brakes, the image of verdure and luxuriance, or tall grass and clover. Down the gentle slopes murmured clear limestone brooks. Finley, who had some touch of scripture knowledge, exclaimed in view of this wilderness-paradise, so abundant in game and wild fowls, "This wilderness blossoms as the rose; and these desolate places are as the garden of God."
"Ay," responded Boone; "and who would remain on the sterile pine hills of North Carolina, to hear the screaming of the jay, and now and then bring down a deer too lean to be eaten? This is the land of hunters, where man and beast will grow to their full size."
They ranged through various forests, and crossed the numerous streams of the vicinity. By following the paths of the buffaloes, bears, deer, and other animals, they discovered the Salines or Licks, where salt is made at the present day. The paths, in approaching the salines, were trodden as hard and smooth, as in the vicinity of the farm-yards of the old settlements. Boone, from the principle which places the best pilot at the helm in a storm, was not slow to learn from innumerable circumstances which would have passed unnoticed by a less sagacious woodsman, that, although the country was not actually inhabited by Indians, it was not the less a scene of strife and combat for the possession of such rich hunting grounds by a great number of tribes. He discovered that it was a common park to these fierce tribes; and none the less likely to expose them to the dangers of Indian warfare, because it was not claimed or inhabited by any particular tribe. On the contrary, instead of having to encounter a single tribe in possession, he foresaw that the jealousy of all the tribes would be united against the new intruders.
These fearless spirits, who were instinctively imbued with an abhorrence of the Indians, heeded little, however, whether they had to make war on them, or the wild beasts. They felt in its fullest force that indomitable elasticity of character, which causes the possessor, every where, and in all forms of imagined peril, to feel sufficient to themselves. Hence the lonely adventurers continued fearlessly to explore the beautiful positions for settlements, to cross and name the rivers, and to hunt.