For six months this adventurous little party lived and hunted in their new empire. Then, swiftly and without warning, there came a taste of some of the disadvantages of this wild residence. Stewart and Boone were taken captive by the Indians and were carried to the north, a march of seven days. On the seventh night they made their escape and came back to their bivouac on the Red River, only to find that their friends had left them and returned to the settlements. As offset to this unpleasant news came their present discovery by Squire Boone and one companion, Alexander Neeley, who had followed the adventurers all the way into Kentucky. Daniel's older brother had brought with him some needful supplies, chief of these powder and lead, worth far more than gold and silver.
"Soon after this period," goes on the simple and businesslike chronicle, "John Stewart was killed by the Indians." Hence the two Boone brothers were left alone, Squire Boone's companion having met his fate in some mysterious manner, perhaps at the hands of the Indians, though others state that he was devoured by wolves,--a very unlikely story. The two brothers built themselves a rude cabin of poles and bark, and there they spent the fall and summer of 1769. In May of the following year Squire Boone returned to North Carolina.[9]
It is now that for the first time we may accord justice to the picture that shows us the pioneer, Daniel Boone, alone in the wilderness of Kentucky. He was at this time, so far as he knew, the only white man in that entire section of country. Fearless, adventurous and self-reliant, he extended his wanderings farther to the west, and visited the site of what is now the city of Louisville. His life depended entirely upon his own vigilance. He was without bread or salt, without even a dog to keep him company or serve as guard. Naturally he met the savages. Once when pursued by the Indians, he escaped by the clever artifice of swinging himself far to one side of his trail by means of a depending grape-vine--a stratagem not recorded of any other Western adventurer.
He seems to have been happy, alone in a solitude whose nature one can not understand who has never found himself under conditions at least mildly similar. His consolation came in his communings with the wild things about him, in his readings in the great book of nature. His gallery was the magnificent one of wood and stream and hill. "He stood upon an eminence, whence, looking about in astonishment, he beheld the ample plain and beauteous upland, and saw the river rolling in silent dignity. The chirp of the birds solaced his cares with music. The numerous deer and elk which passed him gave him assurance that he was in the midst of plenty. Cheerfulness possessed his mind. He was a second Adam--if the figure be not too strong--giving names to springs and rivers and places all unknown to civilized man." Such was the kingdom of the West.