8. Are you constantly trying to form mental pictures as you read?
Daniel Boone.
CHAPTER XVIII
Daniel Boone,
the
Kentucky
Pioneer
[1735-1820]
You will recall that at the beginning of the Last French War in 1756 the English colonies lived almost entirely between the Alleghany Mountains and the Atlantic Ocean. Such continued to be their narrow boundaries up to the beginning of the Revolutionary War. To understand how, at the end of this war, the western boundary had been extended to the Mississippi, we must turn our attention to those early western pioneers, the backwoodsmen, who rendered very important services to their country.
One of the most noted of these pioneers was Daniel Boone. He was born in Bucks County, Pa., in 1735. Caring little for books, he spent most of his time in hunting and fishing. The woods were his special delight, and naturally he became an expert rifleman.
The story is told that when a small boy he wandered one day into the forest some distance from home, and built himself a rough shelter of logs. There he would spend days at a time with only his rifle and game for company. The rifle served to bring down the game, and this he cooked over a fire of logs. A prince might have envied his dreamless slumber as he lay on a bed of leaves with the skin of a wild animal for covering. This free, wild life trained him for his future career as a fearless hunter and woodsman.
