Читать книгу The Life and Times of Col. Daniel Boone, Hunter, Soldier, and Pioneer - Ellis Edward Sylvester - Страница 6

The Escape – The Hunters find the Camp Deserted – Change of Quarters – Boone and Kenton – Welcome Visitors – News from Home – In Union there is Strength – Death of Stuart – Squire Boone returns to North Carolina for Ammunition – Alone in the Wilderness – Danger on Every Hand – Rejoined by his Brother – Hunting along the Cumberland River – Homeward Bound – Arrival in North Carolina – Anarchy and Distress – Boone remains there Two Years – Attention directed towards Kentucky – George Washington – Boone prepared to move Westward

It was near midnight when, having satisfied himself that every warrior, including the guard, was sound asleep, Boone cautiously raised his head and looked towards Stuart.

But he was as sound asleep as the Indians themselves, and it was a difficult and dangerous matter to awaken him, for the Indian sleeps as lightly as the watching lioness. The slightest incautious movement or muttering on the part of the man would be sure to rouse their captors.

But Boone managed to tell his companion the situation, and the two with infinite care and caution succeeded in gradually extricating themselves from the ring of drowsy warriors.

"Make not the slightest noise," whispered Boone, placing his mouth close to the ear of Stuart, who scarcely needed the caution.

The camp-fire had sunk low, and the dim light thrown out by the smouldering logs cast grotesque shadows of the two crouching figures as they moved off with the noiselessness of phantoms. Having gained such immense advantage at the very beginning, neither was the one to throw it away, and Stuart followed the instructions of his companion to the letter.

The forms of the Indians in their picturesque positions remained motionless, and it need hardly be said that at the end of a few minutes, which seemed ten times longer than they were, the two pioneers were outside the camp, and stood together beneath the dense shadows of the trees.

It was a clear, starlit night, and the hunters used the twinkling orbs and the barks of the trees to guide them in determining the direction of their camp, towards which they pushed to the utmost, for having been gone so long, they were naturally anxious to learn how their friends had fared while they were away.

Boone and Stuart scarcely halted during the darkness, and when the sun rose, were in a portion of the country which they easily recognized as at no great distance from the gorge in which they had erected their cabin more than six months before.

They pressed on with renewed energy, and a few hours later reached the camp, which to their astonishment they found deserted. The supposition was that the hunters had grown tired or homesick and had gone home, though there is no certainty as to whether they were not all slain by the Indians, who seem to have roused themselves to the danger from the encroachments of the whites upon their hunting-grounds.

It was a great disappointment to Boone and Stuart to find themselves alone, but they determined to stay where they were some time longer, even though their supply of ammunition was running low, and both were anxious to hear from home.

The certainty that the Indians were in the section about them, as the friends had learned from dear experience, rendered it necessary to exercise the utmost caution, for, if they should fall into their hands again, they could not hope for such a fortunate deliverance.

Instead of using the headquarters established so long before, they moved about, selecting the most secret places so as to avoid discovery, while they were constantly on the alert through the day.

But both were masters of woodcraft, and Boone probably had no superior in the lore of the woods. It is said of him that, some years later, he and the great Simon Kenton reached a river from opposite directions at the same moment, and simultaneously discovered, when about to cross, that a stranger was on the other side.

Neither could know of a certainty whether he confronted a friend or enemy, though the supposition was that he was hostile, in which event the slightest advantage gained by one was certain to be fatal to the other.

Immediately the two hunters began maneuvering, like a couple of sparrers, to discover an unguarded point which would betray the truth. It was early morning when this extraordinary duel opened, and it was kept steadily up the entire day. Just at nightfall the two intimate friends succeeded in identifying each other.

A man with such Esquimau-like patience, and such marvelous ingenuity and skill, was sure to take the best care of himself, and during the few days of hunting which followed, he and Stuart kept clear of all "entangling alliances," and did not exchange a hostile shot with the red-men.

In the month of January, they were hunting in the woods, when they caught sight of two hunters in the distance among the trees. Boone called out:

"Hallo, strangers! who are you?"

"White men and friends," was the astonishing answer.

The parties now hastened towards each other, and what was the amazement and happiness of the pioneers to find that one of the men was Squire Boone, the younger brother of Daniel, accompanied by a neighbor from his home on the far-off Yadkin.

They had set out to learn the fate of the hunting party that left North Carolina early in the spring, and that had now been so long absent that their friends feared the worst, and had sent the two to learn what had become of them, just as in these later days we send an expedition to discover the North Pole, and then wait a little while and send another to discover the expedition.

No one could have been more welcome to the two pioneers, for they brought not only a plentiful supply of ammunition, but, what was best of all, full tidings of the dear ones at home.

Squire Boone and his companion had found the last encampment of their friends the night before, so they were expecting to meet them, though not entirely relieved of their anxiety until they saw each other.

It can be imagined with what delight the four men gathered around their carefully guarded camp-fire that evening, and talked of home and friends, and listened to and told the news and gossip of the neighborhood, where all their most loving associations clustered. It must have been a late hour when they lay down to sleep, and Daniel Boone and Stuart that night could not fail to dream of their friends on the banks of the distant Yadkin.

The strength of the party was doubled, for there were now four skillful hunters, and they had plenty of ammunition, so it was decided to stay where they were some months longer.

It seems strange that they should not have acted upon the principle that in union there is strength, for instead of hunting together, they divided in couples. This may have offered better prospects in the way of securing game, but it exposed them to greater danger, and a frightful tragedy soon resulted.

Boone and Stuart were hunting in company, when they were suddenly fired into by a party of Indians, and Stuart dropped dead. Boone was not struck, and he dashed like a deer into the forest. Casting one terrified glance over his shoulder, he saw poor Stuart scalped as soon as he fell to the earth, pierced through the heart by the fatal bullet.

This left but three of them, and that fearfully small number was soon reduced to two. The hunter who came from North Carolina with Squire Boone was lost in the woods, and did not return to camp. The brothers made a long and careful search, signaling and using every means possible to find him, but there was no response, and despairing and sorrowful they were obliged to give over the hunt. He was never seen again. Years afterward the discovery of a skeleton in the woods was believed to indicate his fate. It is more than probable that the stealthy shot of some treacherous Indian, hidden in the canebrake, had closed the career of the man as that of Stuart was ended.

The subsequent action of Boone was as characteristic as it was remarkable. It is hard to imagine a person, placed in the situation of the two, who would not have made all haste to return to his home; and this would be expected, especially, of the elder brother, who had been absent fully six months longer than the other.

And yet he did exactly the opposite. He had fallen in love with the enchantments of the great Kentucky wilderness, with its streams, rivers and rich soil, and its boundless game, and he concluded to stay where he was, while Squire made the long journey back to North Carolina for more ammunition.

Daniel reasoned that when Squire rejoined his family and acquainted them with his own safety, and assured the wife and children that all was going well with him, the great load of anxiety would be lifted from their minds, and they would be content to allow the two to make a still more extended acquaintance with the peerless land beyond the Cumberland mountains.

Accordingly Squire set out for his home, and it should be borne in mind that his journey was attended by as much danger as was the residence of the elder brother in Kentucky, for he was in peril from Indians all the way.

Daniel Boone was now left entirely alone in the vast forests, with game, wild beasts and ferocious Indians, while his only friend and relative was daily increasing the distance between them, as he journeyed toward the East.

Imagination must be left to picture the life of this comparatively young man during the three months of his brother's absence. Boone was attached to his family, and yet he chose deliberately to stay where he was, rather than accompany his brother on his visit to his home.

But he had little time to spend in gloomy retrospection or apprehensions, for there were plenty of Indians in the woods, and they were continually looking for him.

He changed his camp frequently, and more than once when he lay hidden in the thick cane and crawled stealthily back to where he had spent the previous night, the print of moccasins in the earth told him how hot the hunt had been for him.

Indian trails were all about him, and many a time the warriors attempted to track him through the forest and canebrakes, but the lithe, active pioneer was as thorough a master of woodcraft as they, and he kept out of their way with as much skill as Tecumseh himself ever showed in eluding those who thirsted for his life.

He read the signs with the same unerring accuracy he showed in bringing down the wild turkey, or in barking the squirrel on the topmost limb. Often he lay in the canebrake, and heard the signals of the Indians as they pushed their search for the white man who, as may be said, dared to defy them on their own ground.

Boone could tell from these carefully guarded calls how dangerous the hunt was becoming, and when he thought the warriors were getting too close to his hiding-place, he carefully stole out and located somewhere else until perhaps the peril passed.

There must have been times when, stretched beneath the trees and looking up at the twinkling stars, with the murmur of the distant river or the soughing of the night-wind through the branches, his thoughts wandered over the hundreds of miles of intervening wilderness to the humble home on the bank of the Yadkin, where the loved wife and little ones looked longingly toward the western sun and wondered when the husband and father would come back to them.

And yet Boone has said, while admitting these gloomy moments, when he was weighed down by the deepest depression, that some of the most enjoyable hours of his life were those spent in solitude, without a human being, excepting a deadly enemy, within hail.

The perils which followed every step under the arches of the trees, but rendered them the more attractive, and the pioneer determined to remove his family, and to make their home in the sylvan land of enchantment just so soon as he could complete the necessary arrangements for doing so.

On the 27th of July, 1770, Squire Boone returned and rejoined his brother, who was glad beyond description to receive him, and to hear so directly from his beloved home. During the absence of the younger, the other had explored pretty much all of the central portion of Kentucky, and the result was that he formed a greater attachment than ever for the new territory.

When Squire came back, Daniel said that he deemed it imprudent to stay where they were any longer. The Indians were so numerous and vigilant that it seemed impossible to keep out of their way; accordingly they proceeded to the Cumberland River, where they spent the time in hunting and exploration until the early spring of 1771.

They gave names to numerous streams, and, having enjoyed a most extraordinary hunting jaunt, were now ready to go back to North Carolina and rejoin their families.

But they set out for their homes with not the slightest purpose of staying there. They had seen too much of the pleasures of the wood, for either to be willing to give them up. In North Carolina there was the most exasperating trouble. The tax-gatherer was omnipresent and unbearably oppressive; the social lines between the different classes was drawn as if with a two-edged sword; there were murmurs and mutterings of anger in every quarter; Governor Tryon, instead of pacifying, was only fanning the flames; ominous signs were in the skies, and anarchy, red war and appalling disaster seemed to loom up in the near future.

What wonder, therefore, that Daniel Boone turned his eyes with a longing such as comes over the weary traveler who, after climbing a precipitous mountain, looks beyond and sees the smiling verdure of the promised land.

He had determined to emigrate long before, and he now made what might be called the first move in that direction. He and his brother pushed steadily forward without any incident worth noting, and reached their homes in North Carolina, where, as may well be supposed, they were welcomed like those who had risen from the dead. They had been gone many months, and in the case of Daniel, two years had passed since he clasped his loved wife and children in his arms.

The neighbors, too, had feared the worst, despite the return of Squire Boone with the good news of the pioneer, and they were entertained as were those at court when Columbus, coming back from his first voyage across the unknown seas, related his marvelous stories of the new world beyond.

Daniel Boone found his family well, and, as his mind was fixed upon his future course, he began his preparations for removal to Kentucky.

This was a most important matter, for there was a great deal to do before the removal could be effected. It was necessary to dispose of the little place upon which they had lived so long and bestowed so much labor, and his wife could not be expected to feel enthusiastic over the prospect of burying herself in the wilderness, beyond all thought of returning to her native State.

Then again Boone was not the one to entertain such a rash scheme as that of removing to Kentucky, without taking with him a strong company, able to hold its own against the Indians, who were certain to dispute their progress.

It is easy to understand the work which lay before Boone, and it may be well believed that months passed without any start being made, though the great pioneer never faltered or wavered in his purpose.

Matters were not improving about him. The trouble, distress, and difficulties between the authorities and the people were continually aggravated, and the Revolution was close at hand.

At the end of two years, however, Boone was prepared to make the momentous move, and it was done. The farm on the Yadkin was sold, and he had gathered together a goodly company for the purpose of forming the first real settlement in Kentucky.

During the few years immediately preceding, the territory was visited by other hunters, while Boone himself was alone in the solitude. A company numbering forty, and led by Colonel James Knox, gathered for a grand buffalo hunt in the valleys of the Clinch, New River, and Holston. A number of them skirted along the borders of Tennessee and Kentucky.

While they were thus engaged, others penetrated the valleys from Virginia and Pennsylvania, and among them was a young man named George Washington.

As is well known, his attention had been directed some time before to the lands along the Ohio, and he owned a number of large claims. He clearly foresaw the teeming future of the vast West, and he was especially desirous of informing himself concerning the lands lying in the neighborhood of the mouth of the Kanawha.

At that particular date, the Virginians were converging toward the country south of the river, and there were many difficulties with the Indians, who then as now are ready to resist entrance upon their hunting-grounds, even though the immigrants are backed by the stipulations of a recently signed treaty.