Page:Columbus and other heroes of American discovery; (IA columbusotherher00bell).pdf/186

 in 1763, of the lands on the east of the Mississippi to England, while Spain acquired those in the West; and, in 1804, in the purchase by the American Government of the whole region between the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains, a transaction doubling the area of the United States, and ushering in a new era of discovery. Before we accompany the heroes deputed to explore scientifically the newly-acquired districts, however, we must complete our story of the colonization of the so-called middle states by joining Daniel Boone, to whom is due the honor of having been the first to settle beyond the Alleghany Mountains, which had long formed the western limit alike of colonization and travel.

Daniel Boone

Boone, whose early life was passed in North Carolina, was first led to turn his attention to the "Far West," as Kentucky and Tennessee were called in the early days of which we are writing, by the glowing accounts given of the exuberant soil and vast quantity of game met with on either side of the Kentucky River by a hunter named John Finley. In 1767, Finley penetrated almost into the rich cane-brakes of Kentucky; and two years later, he and five other men of a similar stamp persuaded Boone to be their leader in an exploring expedition to the newly-discovered hunting-grounds.

On the 9th June, 1769, the little band started on their arduous trip from Boone's house on the Yadkin, and made their way on foot up a rugged mountain of the Alleghany range, the summit of which was reached as the sun was setting. Before them lay the fertile valley of Kentucky, with its rolling plains, tenanted by the buffalo, the deer, and other game, alternating with rugged hills, while beyond stretched vast forests haunted by the wild red men, members of the Chickasaw, Cherokee, and Shawanol tribes, who were as yet untamed by intercourse with the white man.

After a couple of months of successful hunting, the party divided for the