In 1769 Boone, excited by these vague and wondrous tales,
determined himself to cross the mountains and find out what
manner of land it was that lay beyond. With a few chosen
companions he set out, making his own trail through the gloomy
forest. After weeks of wandering, he at last emerged into the
beautiful and fertile country of Kentucky, for which, in after
years, the red men and the white strove with such obstinate fury
that it grew to be called "the dark and bloody ground." But when
Boone first saw it, it was a fair and smiling land of groves and
glades and running waters, where the open forest grew tall and
beautiful, and where innumerable herds of game grazed, roaming
ceaselessly to and fro along the trails they had trodden during
countless generations. Kentucky was not owned by any Indian
tribe, and was visited only by wandering war-parties and
hunting-parties who came from among the savage nations living
north of the Ohio or south of the Tennessee.

A roving war-party stumbled upon one of Boone's companions and
killed him, and the others then left Boone and journeyed home;
but his brother came out to join him, and the two spent the
winter together. Self-reliant, fearless, and the frowning defiles
of Cumberland Gap, they were attacked by Indians, and driven
back--two of Boone's own sons being slain. In 1775, however, he
made another attempt; and this attempt was successful. The
Indians attacked the newcomers; but by this time the parties of
would-be settlers were sufficiently numerous to hold their own.
They beat back the Indians, and built rough little hamlets,
surrounded by log stockades, at Boonesborough and Harrodsburg;
and the permanent settlement of Kentucky had begun.