His high, calm, bold forehead seemed converted by years into iron." Although we are indebted to these and other early chroniclers for many details of Boone's life, there was one event which none of his biographers has related; yet we know that it must have taken place.
Even the bare indication of it is found only in the narrative of the adventures of two other explorers.
It was in the winter of 1803 that these two men came to Boone's Settlement, as La Charette was now generally called.

They had planned to make their winter camp there, for in the spring, when the Missouri rose to the flood, they and their company of frontiersmen were to take their way up that uncharted stream and over plains and mountains in quest of the Pacific Ocean.

They were refused permission by the Spanish authorities to camp at Boone's Settlement; so they lay through the winter some forty miles distant on the Illinois side of the Mississippi, across from the mouth of the Missouri.

Since the records are silent, we are free to picture as we choose their coming to the settlement during the winter and again in the spring, for we know that they came.
We can imagine, for instance, the stir they made in La Charette on some sparkling day when the frost bit and the crusty snow sent up a dancing haze of diamond points.

We can see the friendly French habitants staring after the two young leaders and their men--all mere boys, though they were also husky, seasoned frontiersmen--with their bronzed faces of English cast, as in their gayly fringed deerskins they swaggered through the hamlet to pay their respects to the Syndic.