It was on the Ohio, and Boone was in a canoe, alone with his dog and gun, setting forth on a solitary trip into the wilderness to trap beaver.

He would not even join himself to the other travellers for a night, preferring to plunge at once into the wild, lonely life he so loved.

His strong character and keen mind struck the Englishman, who yet saw that the old hunter belonged to the class of pioneers who could never themselves civilize the land, because they ever fled from the face of the very civilization for which they had made ready the land.

In Boone's soul the fierce impatience of all restraint burned like a fire.

He told the Englishman that he no longer cared for Kentucky, because its people had grown too easy of life; and that he wished to move to some place where men still lived untrammelled and unshackled, and enjoyed uncontrolled the free blessings of nature.
[Footnote: Francis Bailey's "Journal of a Tour in Unsettled Parts of North America in 1796 and 1797," p.