Yet Boone was simple and unpretentious as any leader that ever lived. Once Simon Kenton, himself a hardy soul, set out with some friends on a little hunt from the station at Boonesborough. They were fired upon by Indians from ambush. One man was shot down by the Indians within seventy yards of the stockade. His murderer would have scalped him had not Kenton dropped him, a corpse beside a corpse. Then it was general mêlée until Daniel Boone and ten others came out from the stockade to assist their fighting comrades. Kenton killed another Indian, and then there came a rush. Boone directed a charge upon the savages, but was shot down, a ball breaking his leg. Kenton, brave fellow that he was, shot down Boone's assailant and carried Boone safely into the fort. As he lay on the couch receiving attention for the leg broken by the ball, Boone sent for Kenton and said: "Well, Simon, you have behaved like a man to-day. Indeed you are a fine fellow." That was all there was to it. They made no great parade in those days. There was no proclamation in the public places. There were no illustrated newspapers, no gifted war correspondents to describe the heroism of that time. A similar act to-day would have made both participants famous, would perhaps have won for both a Victoria Cross, and would have afforded imaginative correspondents excellent opportunity. The West had no Victoria Crosses, nor needed any.
In times of such continual excitement and danger it is small wonder that there has been but scant record kept of individual deeds of daring. Boone himself was not wont to boast of his own prowess, and regarding his deeds of arms there are not many authentic anecdotes.
One of the best known of his adventures was that in which he met two savages in the forest while he himself was alone. Those were flint-lock days, and Boone was, according to the story, able, by watching the flash of the first savage's rifle, to throw himself out of the way of the bullet. This manoeuver he repeated with the second Indian. Then he calmly shot one Indian dead with his rifle, closed with the other, received a blow of his tomahawk on his own rifle barrel, and killed the savage with his knife. A statue commemorating this feat was later placed above the south door of the rotunda in the Capitol at Washington.