Hero Tales From American History | Page 9

south in winter and lit on the rivers.
But whenever Boone went into the woods after game, he had
perpetually to keep watch lest he himself might be hunted in turn. He
never lay in wait at a game-lick, save with ears strained to hear the
approach of some crawling red foe. He never crept up to a turkey he
heard calling, without exercising the utmost care to see that it was not
an Indian; for one of the favorite devices of the Indians was to imitate
the turkey call, and thus allure within range some inexperienced hunter.
Besides this warfare, which went on in the midst of his usual vocations,
Boone frequently took the field on set expeditions against the savages.
Once when he and a party of other men were making salt at a lick, they
were surprised and carried off by the Indians. The old hunter was a
prisoner with them for some months, but finally made his escape and
came home through the trackless woods as straight as the wild pigeon
flies. He was ever on the watch to ward off the Indian inroads, and to
follow the warparties, and try to rescue the prisoners. Once his own
daughter, and two other girls who were with her, were carried off by a
band of Indians. Boone raised some friends and followed the trail
steadily for two days and a night; then they came to where the Indians
had killed a buffalo calf and were camped around it. Firing from a little
distance, the whites shot two of the Indians, and, rushing in, rescued the
girls. On another occasion, when Boone had gone to visit a salt-lick
with his brother, the Indians ambushed them and shot the latter. Boone
himself escaped, but the Indians followed him for three miles by the aid
of a tracking dog, until Boone turned, shot the dog, and then eluded his

pursuers. In company with Simon Kenton and many other noted
hunters and wilderness warriors, he once and again took part in
expeditions into the Indian country, where they killed the braves and
drove off the horses. Twice bands of Indians, accompanied by French,
Tory, and British partizans from Detroit, bearing the flag of Great
Britain, attacked Boonesboroug. In each case Boone and his
fellowsettlers beat them off with loss. At the fatal battle of the Blue
Licks, in which two hundred of the best riflemen of Kentucky were
beaten with terrible slaughter by a great force of Indians from the lakes,
Boone commanded the left wing. Leading his men, rifle in hand, he
pushed back and overthrew the force against him; but meanwhile the
Indians destroyed the right wing and center, and got round in his rear,
so that there was nothing left for Boone's men except to flee with all
possible speed.
As Kentucky became settled, Boone grew restless and ill at ease. He
loved the wilderness; he loved the great forests and the great prairielike
glades, and the life in the little lonely cabin, where from the door he
could see the deer come out into the clearing at nightfall. The
neighborhood of his own kind made him feel cramped and ill at ease.
So he moved ever westward with the frontier; and as Kentucky filled
up he crossed the Mississippi and settled on the borders of the prairie
country of Missouri, where the Spaniards, who ruled the territory, made
him an alcalde, or judge. He lived to a great age, and died out on the
border, a backwoods hunter to the last.

GEORGE ROGERS CLARK AND THE CONQUEST OF THE
NORTHWEST
Have the elder races halted? Do they droop and end their lesson,
wearied over there beyond the seas ? We take up the task eternal, and
the burden and the lesson, Pioneers! O Pioneers! All the past we leave
behind, We debouch upon a newer, mightier world, varied world;
Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and the march,
Pioneers! O Pioneers! We detachments steady throwing, Down the
edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep, Conquering, holding,
daring, venturing, as we go the unknown ways, Pioneers! O Pioneers!
* * * * * * *
The sachem blowing the smoke first towards the sun and then towards

the earth, The drama of the scalp dance enacted with painted faces and
guttural exclamations, The setting out of the war-party, the long and
stealthy march, The single file, the swinging hatchets, the surprise and
slaughter of enemies. --Whitman.

GEORGE ROGERS CLARK AND THE CONQUEST OF THE
NORTHWEST
In 1776, when independence was declared, the United States included
only the thirteen original States on the seaboard. With the exception of
a few hunters there were no white men west of the Alleghany
Mountains, and there was