The boundaries of this unexampled purchase could not be clearly defined. There was not any known landmarks to which reference could be made. The United States thus had the sole claim to the vast territory west of the Mississippi, extending on the north through Oregon to the Pacific Ocean, and on the south to the Mexican dominions. From the day of the transfer, the natural resources of the great valley of the Mississippi began to be rapidly developed. The accompanying map will enable the reader more fully to understand the geography of the above narrative. CHAPTER IV. _Camp Life Beyond the Alleghanies._ John Finley and his Adventures.--Aspect of the Country.--Boone's Private Character.--His Love for the Wilderness.--First view of Kentucky.--Emigrants' Dress.--Hunter's Home.--Capture of Boone and Stewart by the Indians.--Their Escape.--Singular Incident. In the year 1767, a bold hunter by the name of John Finley with two or three companions crossed the mountain range of the Alleghanies into the region beyond, now known as Kentucky. The mountains where he crossed, consisting of a series of parallel ridges, some of which were quite impassable save at particular points, presented a rugged expanse nearly fifty miles in breadth. It took many weary days for these moccassined feet to traverse the wild solitudes. The Indian avoids the mountains. He chooses the smooth prairie where the buffalo and the elk graze, and where the wild turkey, the grouse and the prairie chicken, wing their flight, or the banks of some placid stream over which he can glide in his birch canoe, and where fish of every variety can be taken. Indeed the Indians, with an eye for picturesque beauty, seldom reared their villages in the forest, whose glooms repelled them. Generally where the forest approached the stream, they clustered their wigwams in its edge, with the tranquil river and the open country spread out before them.