Years afterwards he crossed the high mountains of North Carolina and went into the great forest of Kentucky, where only Indians and wild animals lived. For a long time he stayed there by himself, with the Indians hunting and trying to kill him. But he was too wide awake for the smartest of them all.
One time, when they were close on his trail, he got away from them by catching hold of a loose grape-vine and making a long swinging jump, and then running on. When the Indians came to the place they lost the marks of his footprints and gave up the chase. At another time when he was taken prisoner he got up, took one of their guns, and slipped away from them without one of them waking up.
Many years afterwards, when he and others had built a fort in Kentucky, and brought out their wives and children, Boone's daughters and two other girls were carried off by Indians while they were out picking wild flowers.
Boone and other hunters were soon on their trail, and followed it by the broken bushes and bits of torn dress which the wide-awake young girls had left behind them. In this way they came up to the Indians while they were eating their supper, fired on them, and then ran up and rescued the girls. These young folks did not go out of the fort to pick wild flowers after that.
Once Daniel Boone was taken prisoner, and would have been burned alive if an old woman had not taken him for her son. The Indians painted his face and made him wear an Indian dress and live with them as one of themselves. But one day he heard them talking, and found that they were going to attack the fort where all his friends were. Then he slipped out of the village and ran away. He had a long journey to make and the Indians followed him close. But he walked in the water to hide his footsteps, and lived on roots and berries, for fear they would hear his gun if he shot any game. In the end he got back safe to the fort. He found it in bad condition, but he set the men at work to make it strong, and when the Indians came they were beaten off.
Daniel Boone lived to be a very old man, and kept going farther west to get away from the new people who were coming into the Kentucky forest. He said he wanted "elbow room." He spent all the rest of his life hunting, and the Indians looked on him as the greatest woodsman and the most wonderful hunter the white men ever had.