But danger from the Indians was present every moment. Day and night, sleeping in their camp or tramping through the woods, the hunters had to be ready for the death grapple. One day Boone and a companion named Stewart were off their guard. The Indians rushed upon them and captured them. [Sidenote: =Captured but escapes=] Boone and his companion understood the ways of the Indians, and won their confidence. One night, as the savages slept around the camp fire, Boone arose and quietly awoke Stewart. They stole silently from the camp and hastened by night and day back to their old camp, only to find it destroyed and their comrades gone. [Sidenote: =News from the old home=] One day Daniel Boone saw his brother coming through the woods. What a happy meeting five hundred miles from home! The brother brought good news from kindred and friends. [Sidenote: =His brother returns home for supplies=] Stewart was shot by the Indians, but Boone and his brother remained all winter in Kentucky. Powder, lead, and salt were growing scarce. What should be done? Boone's brother returned home for supplies, but Daniel remained without even a dog for a companion. He very seldom slept twice in the same place for fear of the Indians. [Illustration: BOONE FIGHTING OVER THE BODY OF HIS SON] He wandered to the banks of the Ohio, and was charmed with all he saw. He then decided that some day he would make Kentucky his home. [Sidenote: =Brings supplies and both go home=] Boone's brother returned in the spring, bringing supplies on two pack horses. After further explorations the two brothers returned to their home on the Yadkin and told their neighbors of the wonders of the new land. [Sidenote: =An Indian attack=] In the fall of 1773 several families, with cattle and horses, bade farewell to their friends and started for Kentucky, a "second Paradise," as Boone called it. Before they reached the new land Indians fell upon them and killed six. Among the killed was Boone's eldest son. The party returned for a time to a settlement in Virginia. [Sidenote: =Making the "Wilderness Road"=] Richard Henderson, a rich planter, claimed a great tract of land in Kentucky, and put Boone at the head of thirty brave men to cut and blaze a road from the Holston River over the mountains, through Cumberland Gap to the Kentucky River. The result was the famous "Wilderness Road," the first road across the mountains, and over which hundreds of pack horses and thousands of settlers made their way. [Illustration: FORT BOONESBORO IN WINTER _After the plan by Colonel Henderson in Collins' "Historical Collections of Kentucky"_] [Sidenote: =Fort Boonesboro=]