The Crossing | Page 3

eyebrows.
After supper the two men sat on the log step, while I set about the task
of skinning the deer my father had shot that day. Presently I felt a
heavy hand on my shoulder.
"What's your name, lad?" he said.
I told him Davy.
"Davy, I'll larn ye a trick worth a little time," said he, whipping out a
knife. In a trice the red carcass hung between the forked stakes, while I
stood with my mouth open. He turned to me and laughed gently.
"Some day you'll cross the mountains and skin twenty of an evening,"
he said. "Ye'll make a woodsman sure. You've got the eye, and the
hand."
This little piece of praise from him made me hot all over.
"Game rare?" said he to my father.
"None sae good, now," said my father.
"I reckon not. My cabin's on Beaver Creek some forty mile above, and
game's going there, too."
"Settlements," said my father. But presently, after a few whiffs of his
pipe, he added, "I hear fine things of this land across the mountains,
that the Indians call the Dark and Bluidy Ground."

"And well named," said the stranger.
"But a brave country," said my father, "and all tramped down with
game. I hear that Daniel Boone and others have gone into it and come
back with marvellous tales. They tell me Boone was there alone three
months. He's saething of a man. D'ye ken him?"
The ruddy face of the stranger grew ruddier still.
"My name's Boone," he said.
"What!" cried my father, "it wouldn't be Daniel?"
"You've guessed it, I reckon."
My father rose without a word, went into the cabin, and immediately
reappeared with a flask and a couple of gourds, one of which he handed
to our visitor.
"Tell me aboot it," said he.
That was the fairy tale of my childhood. Far into the night I lay on the
dewy grass listening to Mr. Boone's talk. It did not at first flow in a
steady stream, for he was not a garrulous man, but my father's
questions presently fired his enthusiasm. I recall but little of it, being so
small a lad, but I crept closer and closer until I could touch this superior
being who had been beyond the Wall. Marco Polo was no greater
wonder to the Venetians than Boone to me.
He spoke of leaving wife and children, and setting out for the Unknown
with other woodsmen. He told how, crossing over our blue western
wall into a valley beyond, they found a "Warrior's Path" through a gap
across another range, and so down into the fairest of promised lands.
And as he talked he lost himself in the tale of it, and the very quality of
his voice changed. He told of a land of wooded hill and pleasant vale,
of clear water running over limestone down to the great river beyond,
the Ohio--a land of glades, the fields of which were pied with flowers
of wondrous beauty, where roamed the buffalo in countless thousands,

where elk and deer abounded, and turkeys and feathered game, and
bear in the tall brakes of cane. And, simply, he told how, when the
others had left him, he stayed for three months roaming the hills alone
with Nature herself.
"But did you no' meet the Indians?" asked my father.
"I seed one fishing on a log once," said our visitor, laughing, "but he
fell into the water. I reckon he was drowned."
My father nodded comprehendingly,--even admiringly.
"And again!" said he.
"Wal," said Mr. Boone, "we fell in with a war party of Shawnees going
back to their lands north of the great river. The critters took away all we
had. It was hard," he added reflectively; "I had staked my fortune on
the venter, and we'd got enough skins to make us rich. But, neighbor,
there is land enough for you and me, as black and rich as Canaan."
"'The Lord is my shepherd,'" said my father, lapsing into verse. "'The
Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He leadeth me into green
pastures, and beside still waters.'"
For a time they were silent, each wrapped in his own thought, while the
crickets chirped and the frogs sang. From the distant forest came the
mournful hoot of an owl.
"And you are going back?" asked my father, presently.
"Aye, that I am. There are many families on the Yadkin below going,
too. And you, neighbor, you might come with us. Davy is the boy that
would thrive in that country."
My father did not answer. It was late indeed when we lay down to rest,
and the night I spent between waking and dreaming of the wonderland
beyond the mountains, hoping against hope that my father would