Boon’s claim to distinction rests not so much on his wide wanderings in unknown lands, for in this respect he did little more than was done by a hundred other backwoods hunters of his generation, but on the fact that he was able to turn his daring woodcraft to the advantage of his fellows.  As he himself said, he was an instrument “ordained of God to settle the wilderness.”  He inspired confidence in all who met him,[9] so that the men of means and influence were willing to trust adventurous enterprises to his care; and his success as an explorer, his skill as a hunter, and his prowess as an Indian fighter, enabled him to bring these enterprises to a successful conclusion, and in some degree to control the wild spirits associated with him.

Boon’s expeditions into the edges of the wilderness whetted his appetite for the unknown.  He had heard of great hunting-grounds in the far interior from a stray hunter and Indian trader,[10] who had himself seen them, and on May 1, 1769, he left his home on the Yadkin “to wander through the wilderness of America in quest of the country of Kentucky."[11] He was accompanied by five other men, including his informant, and struck out towards the northwest, through the tangled mass of rugged mountains and gloomy forests.  During five weeks of severe toil the little band journeyed through vast solitudes, whose utter loneliness can with difficulty be understood by those who have not themselves dwelt and hunted in primaeval mountain forests.  Then, early in June, the adventurers broke through the interminable wastes of dim woodland, and stood on the threshold of the beautiful blue-grass region of Kentucky; a land of running waters, of groves and glades, of prairies, cane-brakes, and stretches of lofty forest.  It was teeming with game.  The shaggy-maned herds of unwieldy buffalo—­the bison as they should be called—­had beaten out broad roads through the forest, and had furrowed the prairies with trails along which they had travelled for countless generations.  The round-horned elk, with spreading, massive antlers, the lordliest of the deer tribe throughout the world, abounded, and like the buffalo travelled in bands not only through the woods but also across the reaches of waving grass land.  The deer were extraordinarily numerous, and so were bears, while wolves and panthers were plentiful.

Wherever there was a salt spring the country was fairly thronged with wild beasts of many kinds.  For six months Boon and his companions enjoyed such hunting as had hardly fallen to men of their race since the Germans came out of the Hercynian forest.[12]