Cumberland, before Shelby left on his Chickamauga expedition.  But it is possible that he had left Chota before, and that another man was there as commissioner at the time of the Chickamauga raid which was followed by Shelby’s counter-stroke.] with eight companions, one of them a negro.  He followed Boon’s trace,—­Wilderness Road,—­through Cumberland Gap, and across the Cumberland River.  Then he struck off southwest through the wilderness, lightening his labor by taking the broad, well-beaten buffalo trails whenever they led in his direction; they were very distinct near the pools and springs, and especially going to and from the licks.  The adventurers reached the bend of the Cumberland without mishap, and fixed on the neighborhood of the Bluff, the ground near the French Lick, as that best suited for their purpose; and they planted a field of corn on the site of the future forted village of Nashborough.  A few days after their arrival they were joined by another batch of hunter-settlers, who had come out under the leadership of Kasper Mansker.

As soon as the corn was planted and cabins put up, most of the intending settlers returned to their old homes to bring out their families, leaving three of their number “to keep the buffaloes out of the corn.” [Footnote:  Haywood, 83.] Robertson himself first went north through the wilderness to see George Rogers Clark in Illinois, to purchase cabin-rights from him.  This act gives an insight into at least some of the motives that influenced the adventurers.  Doubtless they were impelled largely by sheer restlessness and love of change and excitement; [Footnote:  Phelan, p. 111, fails to do justice to these motives, while very properly insisting on what earlier historians ignored, the intense desire for land speculation.] and these motives would probably have induced them to act as they did, even had there been no others.  But another and most powerful spring of action was the desire to gain land—­not merely land for settlement, but land for speculative purposes.  Wild land was then so abundant that the quantity literally seemed inexhaustible; and it was absolutely valueless until settled.  Our forefathers may well be pardoned for failing to see that it was of more importance to have it owned in small lots by actual settlers than to have it filled up quickly under a system of huge grants to individuals or corporations.  Many wise and good men honestly believed that they would benefit the country at the same time that they enriched themselves by acquiring vast tracts of virgin wilderness, and then proceeding to people them.  There was a rage for land speculation and land companies of every kind.