In Kentucky with Daniel Boone

Along the trail which wound along the banks of the Yadkin, in North Carolina, rode a tall, sinewy man; he had a bronzed, resolute face, wore the hunting shirt, leggins and moccasins of the backwoods, and had hanging from one shoulder a long flint-locked rifle. A small buck, which this unerring weapon of the hunter had lately brought down, lay across his saddle bow.

Away along the trail, at a place where the river bent sharply, a cloud of dust arose in the trail; and as the hunter rode forward he kept his keen eyes upon this.

“Horsemen,” he told himself. “Two of them, I reckon, judging from the dust.”

Nearer and nearer rolled the cloud; at length the riders within it could be seen. One was a middle-aged man who rode a powerful black horse; the other was a boy of perhaps thirteen whose mount was a long-legged young horse, with a wild eye and ears that were never still.

Catching sight of the hunter, the man on the big black drew rein.

“What, Daniel!” cried he. “Well met!”

“How are you, Colonel Henderson?” replied the backwoodsman. “I didn’t calculate on seeing you to-day.”

“I rode over for the express purpose of having a talk with you,” said Colonel Henderson. “I was at your house, but they told me you’d gone away early this morning to try for some game.”

The hunter glanced down at the buck across his saddle. There was a discontented frown upon his brow.

“Yes, gone since early morning,” he said. “And this is all I got. The hunting ain’t so good in the Yadkin country as it was once. As a boy I’ve stood in the door of my father’s cabin and brought down deer big enough to be this one’s granddaddy.”

The boy on the long-legged horse bounced up and down in his saddle at this; the nag felt his excitement and began to rear and plunge.

“Steady, boy, steady,” said Colonel Henderson. “Hold him in.”

“It’s all right, uncle,” replied the lad. “He don’t mean anything by it.” Then to the hunter, as his mount became quiet: “That was good shooting, Mr. Boone, wasn’t it? And,” pointing to the carcass of the buck, “so was that. Right behind the left shoulder; and it left hardly a mark on him.”