Five families left the Yadkin with him for Kentucky, these being joined later by forty men, all of whom traveled under the guidance of Boone. They proceeded westward in pastoral cavalcade, driving their herds and carrying their effects with them. So far, very well, until the tenth of October, when came the first ambuscade of the savage Indians. Six men of the party were killed, among these a son of Daniel Boone. The cattle were scattered or destroyed. No wonder that all lost heart except the steadfast leader. He was content to remain with the retreating party in the settlements of the Clinch River only until June of the following year. Now, biding his time, and longing for greater adventures, Boone receives a message from the governor of Virginia. It seems there are certain surveyors who have gone down the Ohio River and have lost themselves in the wilderness. Could Daniel Boone discover these surveyors for the governor? Assuredly. And hence he undertakes his first real mission of independent leadership. He has but one companion, Michael Stoner or Steiner, and before them lie many hundred miles of trackless forest, with no road, no path, no trail. Yet the surveyors are found and led safely back to their own. This act seems to inspire confidence in Boone, and Colonel Henderson, a famous land speculator, employs him as his agent for the purchase from the Southern Indians of certain lands lying south of the Kentucky River. Boone is successful in these negotiations. It is necessary now that there should be a road established between these outlying lands and the door of civilization. Who better than Boone to establish this wilderness trail? He lays out the way from the Holston to the Kentucky River. We are told, without unnecessary flourish, that “in this work four of his party were killed and five wounded.” It was in April, 1775, that Boone erected a station or palisade on the Kentucky River near a salt lick. We are told that the stockade was built “sixty yards from the south bank of the stream.” This was close to the present site of the town of Frankfort, Kentucky. Another writer says the date of the foundation of Boonesborough—as the station was called—was June fourteenth, 1775. Dates are unimportant. The fact is that Boone during that spring attained his immediate and most cherished ambition. He established his home in the heart of this beautiful land of Kentucky.