"Lieutenant Colonel" had been his title among them, by their demand.

Once indeed he had represented them in the Virginia Assembly and, for that purpose, trudged to Richmond with rifle and hunting dog.

Not interested in the Legislature's proceedings, he left early in the session and tramped home again.
But not even the esteem of friends and neighbors could hold the great hunter when the deer had fled.

So Daniel Boone was now on his way westward to Missouri, to a new land of fabled herds and wide spaces, where the hunter's gun might speak its one word with authority and where the soul of a silent and fearless man might find its true abode in Nature's solitude.

Waving his last farewells, he floated past the little groups--till their shouts of good will were long silenced, and his fleet swung out upon the Ohio.
As Boone sailed on down the Beautiful River which forms the northern boundary of Kentucky, old friends and newcomers who had only heard his fame rode from far and near to greet and godspeed him on his way.
Sometimes he paused for a day with them.