146. Daniel Boone; what the hunters of the west did; Boone's life in North Carolina.--Before Washington began to fight the battles of the Revolution in the east, Daniel Boone and other famous hunters were fighting bears and Indians in what was then called the west. By that war in the woods, these brave and hardy men helped us to get possession of that part of the country. Daniel Boone was born in Pennsylvania.[1] His father moved to North Carolina,[2] and Daniel helped him cut down the trees round their log cabin in the forest. He ploughed the land, which was thick with stumps, hoed the corn that grew up among those stumps, and then,--as there was no mill near,--he pounded it into meal for "johnny-cake." He learned how to handle a gun quite as soon as he did a hoe. The unfortunate deer or coon that saw young Boone coming toward him knew that he had seen his best days, and that he would soon have the whole Boone family sitting round him at the dinner-table. [Illustration: BOONE POUNDING CORN.] [Footnote 1: He was born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.] [Footnote 2: He settled near Wilkesboro, on the banks of the Yadkin River. See map in paragraph 150.] 147. Boone's wanderings in the western forests; his bear tree.--When Daniel had grown to manhood, he wandered off with his gun on his shoulder, and crossing the mountains, entered what is now the state of Tennessee. That whole country was then a wilderness, full of savage beasts and still more savage Indians; and Boone had many a sharp fight with both. More than a hundred and thirty years ago, he cut these words on a beech-tree, still standing in Eastern Tennessee,[3]--"D. Boon killed a bar on (this) tree in the year 1760." You will see if you examine the tree, on which the words can still be read, that Boone could not spell very well; but he could do what the bear minded a good deal more,--he could shoot to kill. [Illustration: BOONE'S BEAR TREE.] [Footnote 3: The tree is still standing on the banks of Boone's Creek, near Jonesboro, Washington County, Tennessee.] 148. Boone goes hunting in Kentucky; what kind of game he found there; the Indians; the "Dark and Bloody Ground."--Nine years after he cut his name on that tree, Boone, with a few companions, went to a new part of the country. The Indians called it Kentucky. There he saw buffalo, deer, bears, and wolves enough to satisfy the best hunter in America. This region was a kind of No Man's Land, because, though many tribes of Indians roamed over it, none of them pretended to own it. These bands of Indians were always fighting and trying to drive each other out, so Kentucky was often called the "Dark and Bloody Ground." But, much as the savages hated each other, they hated the white men, or the "pale-faces," as they called them, still more.