He was never afraid. With his trusty rifle, Tick-Licker, over his shoulder, he explored much of Kentucky. He was happy because the wilderness was wide and he felt free. After a few months, Squire came back. Again the brothers hunted together.

At last Daniel said to Squire, "I'll go home with you this time. We have all the skins we can carry."

"When we sell them, we'll have plenty of money to take to our families," Squire said happily.

It did not happen that way. Indians attacked the brothers when they were nearly home and took the skins. The Boones were still poor men.

But Daniel was happy. He was glad that he had roamed the wilderness for nearly two years. He was sorry he had lost the skins, but he was happy that he had seen Kentucky.

Attacked by Indians

Two years later Daniel Boone decided that he had been away from Kentucky long enough. "Pack up, Rebecca," he said to his wife. "Pack up, children. We Boones can't stay in one spot forever. We're going to move to Kentucky. It's wild and beautiful there. There'll be plenty of land for you young ones when you want homes of your own."

So the Boones packed up. Six other families joined them. People always seemed ready to join Daniel in his search for adventure. The household goods and the farm tools were piled on pack horses. A few of the people rode horseback. But most of them walked. They drove their pigs and cattle before them. The rough trails made travel slow, but the families did not seem to mind.

Just before they reached Cumberland Gap, Daniel Boone sent his sixteen-year-old son, James, on an errand.

"Turn back to Captain Russell's cabin and ask him for the farm tools he and I were talking about," he told the boy. "You can catch up with us tomorrow."

James reached Captain Russell's safely. He camped that night with several men who planned to join Boone. In the darkness some Indians crept up and killed them all.

When the families with Boone heard the news, they no longer wanted to go to Kentucky. They turned and went back over the mountains. The Boone family was sad because of James' death. But Daniel would not give up his dream of living in Kentucky. It would just have to wait a little. He took his wife and children to a spot where they would be safe. But they did not go all the way back to the Yadkin Valley.

Daniel learned that all through the Kentucky Wilderness the Indians were fighting the white men.

Too many white men were coming west. Indians wanted to keep their hunting grounds for themselves. Daniel Boone and another man went into Kentucky to warn the surveyors who were measuring land there. Nearly all of them escaped safely. For a time, the Indians stopped fighting and Kentucky was peaceful again.

The Wilderness Road

Now a rich man named Richard Henderson had a big idea. He would try to buy Kentucky from the Indians for himself and start another colony. His own company would sell land to settlers. Henderson was Daniel's friend. Boone had talked to the Indians about the idea and thought they would sell the land. Many Indian tribes hunted in Kentucky, but the Cherokees were the most important. They had conquered the other tribes and ruled the land. Henderson sent Boone to ask the Cherokees to meet him at Sycamore Shoals in what is now Tennessee.

Twelve hundred Indian men, women, and children came to the meeting place. Henderson had all his trading goods spread out. There were yards and yards of red cloth. There were hundreds of bright new guns. There were beads and pins and little mirrors for the women. Henderson's company had paid a great deal of money for the trading goods.

The Indians were like children about the business of trading land for goods. They loved the bright-colored trinkets. But they knew nothing about the value of land.

Although they had their own lawyer, they traded Kentucky to Henderson for a tiny part of what it was worth. The