"You blockhead! you numscull!" exclaimed the master, as the strokes fell
like a hail shower; "let me hear you demonstrate that."

"If I subtract one bottle of whisky, and replace it with one in which I
have mixed an emetic, will not the whole remain, if nobody drinks it?"

By this time the medicine was taking fearful effect. The united
acclamations and shouts of the children, and the discovery of the
compounder of his medicament, in no degree tended to soothe the
infuriated master. Young Boone, having paid for his sport by an ample
drubbing, seized the opportune moment, floored his master, already weak
and dizzy, sprang from the door, and made for the woods. The adventure
was soon blazoned. A consultation of the patrons of the school was held.
Though young Boone was reprimanded, the master was dismissed.

This is all the certain information we possess, touching the training of
young Boone, in the lore of books and schools. Though he never
afterwards could be brought back to the restraint of the walls of a
school, it is well known, that in some way, in after life, he possessed
himself of the rudiments of a common education. His love for hunting and
the woods now became an absorbing passion. He possessed a dog and a
fowling piece, and with these he would range whole days alone through
the woods, often with no other apparent object, than the simple pleasure
of these lonely wanderings.

One morning he was observed as usual, to throw the band, that suspended
his shot bag, over one shoulder, and his gun over the other, and go
forth accompanied by his dog. Night came, but to the astonishment and
alarm of his parents, the boy, as yet scarcely turned of fourteen, came