Thirteen years later, while engaged in selling pins, needles,
thread, and Irish linens in the Yadkin country, Findlay learned
from the Pennsylvania settlers at Salisbury or at the Forks of
the Yadkin of Boone's removal to the waters of the upper Yadkin.
At Boone's rustic home, in the winter of 1768-9, Findlay visited
his old comrade-in-arms of Braddock's campaign. On learning of
Boone's failure during the preceding year to reach the Kentucky
levels by way of the inhospitable Sandy region, Findlay again
described to him the route through the Ouasioto Gap traversed
sixteen years before by Pennsylvania traders in their traffic
with the Catawbas. Boone, as we have seen, knew that Christopher
Gist, who had formerly lived near him on the upper Yadkin, had
found some passage through the lofty mountain defiles; but he had
never been able to discover the passage. Findlay's renewed
descriptions of the immense herds of buffaloes he had seen in
Kentucky, the great salt-licks where they congregated, the
abundance of bears, deer, and elk with which the country teemed,
the innumerable flocks of wild turkeys, geese, and ducks, aroused
in Boone the hunter's passion for the chase; while the beauty of
the lands, as mirrored in the vivid fancy of the Irishman,
inspired him with a new longing to explore the famous country
which had, as John Filson records, "greatly engaged Mr. Findlay's
attention."

In the comprehensive designs of Henderson, now a judge, for
securing a "graphic report of the trans-Alleghany region in
behalf of his land company", Boone divined the means of securing
the financial backing for an expedition of considerable size and
ample equipment. In numerous suits for debt, aggregating hundreds