sense of loneliness, were alike unknown to him.

We must not, however, suppose that the lonely hunter was capable only of
feeling the stern and sullen pleasures of the savage. On the contrary,
he was a man of the kindliest nature, and of the tenderest affections.
We have read of verses, in solid columns, said to have been made by him.
We would be sorry to believe him the author of these verses, for they
would redound little to his honor as a poet. But, though we believe he
did not attempt to make bad verses, the woodsman was essentially a
poet. He loved nature in all her aspects of beauty and grandeur with the
intensest admiration. He never wearied of admiring the charming natural
landscapes spread before him; and, to his latest days, his spirit in old
age seemed to revive in the season of spring, and when he visited the
fires of the sugar camps, blazing in the open maple groves.

[Illustration]




CHAPTER V.

Boone is pursued by the Indians, and eludes their pursuit--He encounters
and kills a bear--The return of his brother with ammunition--They
explore the country--Boone kills a panther on the back of a
buffalo--They return to North Carolina.


Boone's brother had departed on the first of May. During the period of
his absence, which lasted until the twenty-second of July, he considered