When Daniel Boone returned from tidewater Virginia to the Yadkin region is not now known. It is probable that the monotony of hauling tobacco to market at a time when his old neighbors were living in a state of panic palled upon a man who loved excitement and had had a taste of Indian warfare. It has been surmised that he served with the Rowan rangers upon Lyttleton's campaign, alluded to in the previous chapter, and possibly aided in defending Fort Dobbs, or served with Waddell under Montgomery. That he was, some time in 1760, in the mountains west of the Yadkin upon either a hunt or a scout, or both, appears to be well established; for up to a few years ago there was still standing upon the banks of Boone's Creek, a small tributary of the Watauga in eastern Tennessee, a tree upon whose smooth bark had been rudely carved this characteristic legend, undoubtedly by the great hunter himself: "D Boon cilled A BAR on this tree year 1760."[7]
We have already seen that he accompanied Waddell in 1761, when that popular frontier leader reenforced Colonel Byrd's expedition against the Cherokees. Upon Waddell's return to North Carolina his leather-shirted followers dispersed to their homes, and Boone was again enabled to undertake a protracted hunt, no longer disturbed by fear that in his absence Indians might raid the settlement; for hunting was now his chief occupation, his wife and children conducting the farm, which held second place in his affections. Thus we see how close the borderers came to the savage life wherein men are the warriors and hunters and women the crop-gatherers and housekeepers. Organizing a party of kindred spirits--a goodly portion of the Yadkin settlers were more hunters than farmers--Boone crossed the mountains and roamed through the valleys of southwest Virginia and eastern Tennessee, being especially delighted with the Valley of the Holston, where game was found to be unusually abundant. At about the same time another party of nineteen hunters went upon a similar expedition into the hills and valleys westward of the Yadkin, penetrating well into Tennessee, and being absent for eighteen months.
[Illustration: A BOONE TREE. Tree on Boone's Creek, Tenn., bearing Daniel Boone's autograph. (See pp. 55, 56.)]