and mind with every day, in their season of prime, would feel no shame that they had hearts softened by the warm current of true feeling.  When their own silver hairs lay thin upon the brow, and their eye was dim, and sounds came confused on their ear, and their step faltered, and their form bent, they would find consideration, and care, and tenderness from children, whose breasts were not steeled by ambition, nor hardened by avarice; in whom the beautiful influences of the indulgence of none but natural desires and pure affections would not be deadened by the selfishness, vanity, and fear of ridicule, that are the harvest of what is called civilized and cultivated life.”  Such at least, in after life, were the contrasts that Boone used to present between social life and that of the woodsman.

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CHAPTER III.

Boone, with Finley and others, start on their exploring expedition—­Boone kills a panther in the night—­Their progress over the mountains—­They descend into the great valley—­Description of the new country—­Herds of buffaloes—­Their wanderings in the wilderness.

The first of May, 1769, Finley and Boone, with four others, whose names were Stewart, Holden, Mooney, and Cool, and who had pledged themselves to the undertaking, were assembled at the house of Boone, in readiness to commence their journey.  It may be imagined that all the neighbors gathered to witness their departure.  A rifle, ammunition, and a light knapsack were all the baggage with which they dared encumber themselves.  Provisions for a few days were bestowed along with the clothing deemed absolutely necessary for comfort upon the long route.  No shame could attach to the manhood and courage of Daniel Boone from the fact that tears were said to have rushed to his eyes, as he kissed his wife and children before he turned from his door for the last time for months, and perhaps forever.  The nature of the pioneer was as gentle and affectionate as it was firm and persevering.  He had power, however, to send back the unbidden gush to its source, and forcibly to withdraw his mind from enervating thoughts.

Beside, the natural elasticity of his temperament and the buoyancy of his character came to his aid.  The anticipation of new and strange incidents operated to produce in the minds of the travellers, from the commencement of the enterprise, a kind of wild pleasure.

With alert and vigorous steps they pursued a north-west course, and were soon beyond the reach of the most distant view of their homes.  This day and night, and the succeeding one, the scenes in view were familiar; but in the course of the four or five that followed, all vestiges of civilized habitancy had disappeared.  The route lay through a solitary and trackless wilderness.  Before them rose a line of mountains, shooting up against the blue of the horizon, in peaks and elevations