Kentucky has a remarkably diversified landscape of densely wooded hills and valleys and broad prairie expanses. The genial climate admirably suited the philosophical wanderer. He enjoyed the exquisite beauty and stateliness of the trees--the sycamores, tulip-trees, sugar-trees, honey-locusts, coffee-trees, pawpaws, cucumber-trees, and black mulberries--and found flowers in surprising variety and loveliness. The mineral springs interested him--Big Lick, the Blue Licks, and Big Bone Lick, with its fossil remains of mastodons which had become mired when coming to lick the brackish soil. He traveled far and wide in his search for the beautiful and curious, being chiefly in the valleys of the Licking and the Kentucky, and upon the banks of the Ohio as far down as the site of Louisville, where, at the foot of the falls, he inspected the remains of an old fur trade stockade concerning which Finley had told him. Once he saw some Indians walking upon the northern bank of the Ohio, but managed himself to keep out of sight. At another time, when on the Kentucky, he saw a savage calmly fishing from the trunk of a fallen tree. In mentioning this incident to his family, in later days, he would declare with gravity: "While I was looking at the fellow he tumbled into the river, and I saw him no more." Probably the man of the Yadkin shot him, fearing that the fisherman might carry the news of the former's whereabouts to a possible camp near by. On another occasion, when exploring Dick's River, he was suddenly surrounded by Indians. Having either to surrender or to leap down the precipitous height to a bank sixty feet below, he chose to leap. Landing in the top of a small sugar-maple, he slid down the tree, and was able to escape by running under the overhanging bank and then swimming the stream. Adventures such as this gave abundant spice to the joys of solitude. In the latter part of July Squire arrived from the settlements, having paid all their debts and with the surplus purchased sufficient supplies for another summer and fall campaign against the deer. This was highly successful. They did not lack some interesting experiences, but Indians were not again encountered; so that, when winter approached, Squire was enabled once more to leave with well-laden horses for the markets of the East. Another two months of loneliness were suffered by Daniel; but in December Squire rejoined him with horses, ammunition, and other necessaries, and the pair joyously settled down for still another winter together in the dark and lonely forests of Kentucky. CHAPTER VII PREDECESSORS AND CONTEMPORARIES