He spoke of leaving wife and children, and setting out for the Unknown with other woodsmen. He told how, crossing over our blue western wall into a valley beyond, they found a “Warrior's Path” through a gap across another range, and so down into the fairest of promised lands. And as he talked he lost himself in the tale of it, and the very quality of his voice changed. He told of a land of wooded hill and pleasant vale, of clear water running over limestone down to the great river beyond, the Ohio—a land of glades, the fields of which were pied with flowers of wondrous beauty, where roamed the buffalo in countless thousands, where elk and deer abounded, and turkeys and feathered game, and bear in the tall brakes of cane. And, simply, he told how, when the others had left him, he stayed for three months roaming the hills alone with Nature herself.
“But did you no' meet the Indians?” asked my father.
“I seed one fishing on a log once,” said our visitor, laughing, “but he fell into the water. I reckon he was drowned.”
My father nodded comprehendingly,—even admiringly.
“And again!” said he.
“Wal,” said Mr. Boone, “we fell in with a war party of Shawnees going back to their lands north of the great river. The critters took away all we had. It was hard,” he added reflectively; “I had staked my fortune on the venter, and we'd got enough skins to make us rich. But, neighbor, there is land enough for you and me, as black and rich as Canaan.”
“'The Lord is my shepherd,'” said my father, lapsing into verse. “'The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He leadeth me into green pastures, and beside still waters.'”
For a time they were silent, each wrapped in his own thought, while the crickets chirped and the frogs sang. From the distant forest came the mournful hoot of an owl.
“And you are going back?” asked my father, presently.
“Aye, that I am. There are many families on the Yadkin below going, too. And you, neighbor, you might come with us. Davy is the boy that would thrive in that country.”