travelers could diverge at various points and reach the Cherokee trail or go on through Cumberland Gap farther to the west. =Trails from the North.=--Traders from Virginia who reached far out in Tennessee and Kentucky found competition from those who came down by one of the several routes from the Great Lakes or up from the lower Mississippi. A route left Lake Erie at what is now Cleveland, passed up the Cuyahoga, portaged across to a tributary of the Ohio, then into Kentucky; another left the Lake at Sandusky, followed the Miami, crossed to the Scioto, thence down to the Ohio, across Kentucky to Cumberland Gap, sometimes called the Scioto trail and farther south the Warrior’s Trail. As western territory settled, trails and roads became more numerous. Readers desiring further detailed information are referred to Hurlbert, Thwaites, Dunbar, and Farrand.[21] A few other routes, however, should be mentioned on account of the importance they assumed in the settlement of the nation. =Boone’s Trace, or The Wilderness Road.=--This road is said to be the first road built into the wilderness for the purpose of encouraging settlement and development. In the late years of the nineteenth century it was no uncommon thing for a railroad to precede settlement, but at the beginning of the eighteenth century roads were, in America, made largely for military purposes or where demanded by the traffic of earlier settlement. Daniel Boone, the noted hunter and explorer, had several times left his home in North Carolina to hunt and travel in the wilds of Kentucky. He brought back to the eastern side of the mountains glowing descriptions. These excited the cupidity of a friend, a judge and prominent citizen of North Carolina, James[22] Henderson. Henderson employed Boone to confer with the Cherokee Indians who claimed this territory for the sale of their rights. Boone sought out the Indians and by means now unknown got them to agree to sell. The fact that they were persuaded to dispose of their great hunting grounds shows what influence Boone had among them. It has been intimated that the chiefs realized the futility of further fighting the white settler or that the Cherokees felt they had no real right to this land as it had been rather held as neutral territory among several tribes. However, as soon as they had given their pledge Boone is said to have gone immediately to Henderson, who repaired at once to Fort Watauga on a branch of the Holston in North Carolina, where he met 1200 natives in council and completed the deal in the name of the Transylvania Company. The main opposition came from an eloquent and powerful chief named Dragging Canoe,[23] who was able to disrupt proceedings the first day. After his speech the council broke up in confusion. The next day, however, the Indians again went into council and the treaty was ratified. Estimates of the price paid range from “ten wagon loads of cheap goods and whiskey,” to “the