Two years later Daniel Boone decided that he had been away from Kentucky long enough. “Pack up, Rebecca,” he said to his wife. “Pack up, children. We Boones can’t stay in one spot forever. We’re going to move to Kentucky. It’s wild and beautiful there. There’ll be plenty of land for you young ones when you want homes of your own.”

So the Boones packed up. Six other families joined them. People always seemed ready to join Daniel in his search for adventure. The household goods and the farm tools were piled on pack horses. A few of the people rode horseback. But most of them walked. They drove their pigs and cattle before them. The rough trails made travel slow, but the families did not seem to mind.

Just before they reached Cumberland Gap, Daniel Boone sent his sixteen-year-old son, James, on an errand.

“Turn back to Captain Russell’s cabin and ask him for the farm tools he and I were talking about,” he told the boy. “You can catch up with us tomorrow.”

James reached Captain Russell’s safely. He camped that night with several men who planned to join Boone. In the darkness some Indians crept up and killed them all.

When the families with Boone heard the news, they no longer wanted to go to Kentucky. They turned and went back over the mountains. The Boone family was sad because of James’ death. But Daniel would not give up his dream of living in Kentucky. It would just have to wait a little. He took his wife and children to a spot where they would be safe. But they did not go all the way back to the Yadkin Valley.

Daniel learned that all through the Kentucky Wilderness the Indians were fighting the white men.

Too many white men were coming west. Indians wanted to keep their hunting grounds for themselves. Daniel Boone and another man went into Kentucky to warn the surveyors who were measuring land there. Nearly all of them escaped safely. For a time, the Indians stopped fighting and Kentucky was peaceful again.