Up to that time, the Alleghany Mountains had marked a boundary beyond which white settlers dared not go, for to the west lay great reaches of forest, uninhabited except for wild beasts and still wilder bands of roving Indians.  Into this forest, Boone and his companions plunged, and after some weeks of wandering, emerged into the beautiful and fertile country of Kentucky—­a country not owned by any Indian tribe, but visited only by wandering war- and hunting-parties from the nations living north of the Ohio or south of the Tennessee.  The party found game in abundance, especially great droves of buffalo, and spent some months in hunting and exploring.  A roving war-party stumbled upon one of Boone’s companions, and forthwith killed him; a second soon met the same fate, and Boone himself had more than one narrow escape.  The danger grew so great, that the other members of the party returned over the mountains, and Boone was, for a time, left alone, as he himself put it, “without company of any fellow-creature, or even a horse or dog.”

His brother joined him after a time, and the two spent the winter together.  Game furnished abundant food, and the only danger was from the Indians, but that was an ever-present one.  Sometimes they slept in hollow trees, at other times, they changed their resting-place every night, and after making a fire, would go off for a mile or two in the woods to sleep.  Unceasing vigilance was the price of safety.  When spring came, Boone’s brother returned over the mountains, and again he was left alone.  Three months later the brother came back, bringing a party of hunters, but no one was inclined to settle in so dangerous a locality, the struggle to possess which was so fierce that it became known as “the dark and bloody ground.”

In 1773, Boone himself started to lead a band of settlers over the mountains, but while passing through the frowning defiles of the Cumberland Gap, they were attacked by Indians and driven back, two of Boone’s sons being among the slain.  Hunting parties crossed the mountains from time to time after that, and made great inroads on the vast herds of game, but the Indians were in arms everywhere, and not until they had been defeated at the battle of Point Pleasant, the bloodiest in the history of Virginia with its Indian foe, did they sue for peace.

The coming of peace marked a new era in the development of the western country.  Some years before, a company of men headed by Richard Henderson, had conceived the grandiose project of founding in the west a great colony, and had purchased from the Cherokee Indians a vast tract of land, which they named Transylvania.  It included all the land between the Cumberland and Kentucky rivers, and Daniel Boone was selected to blaze a way into the wilderness, to mark out a road, and start the first settlement.  He got a party together, crossed the mountains, and on April 1, 1775, began to build a fort on the left bank of the Kentucky river, calling it Fort Boone, afterwards Boonesborough.  Some settlers moved in, but the outbreak of the Revolution and the consequent renewal of Indian hostilities under encouragement from the British put a stop to immigration.