They eventually reached the Mississippi River and, having taken a good quantity of peltry on the way, they launched upon the stream and came in time to New Orleans, where they made a satisfactory trade of their furs.
* Kentucky, from Ken-ta-ke, an Iroquois word meaning "the place of old fields." Adair calls the territory "the old fields." The Indians apparently used the word "old," as we do in a sense of endearment and possession as well as relative to age.
Boone was fired anew by descriptions of this successful feat, in which two of his kinsmen had participated.

He could no longer be held back.
He must find the magic door that led through the vast mountain wall into Kentucky--Kentucky, with its green prairies where the buffalo and deer were as "ten thousand thousand cattle feeding" in the wilds, and where the balmy air vibrated with the music of innumerable wings.
Accordingly, in the autumn of 1767, Boone began his quest of the delectable country in the company of his friend, William Hill, who had been with him in Florida.

Autumn was the season of departure on all forest excursions, because by that time the summer crops had been gathered in and the day of the deer had come.

By hunting, the explorers must feed themselves on their travels and with deerskins and furs they must on their return recompense those who had supplied their outfit.
Boone, the incessant but not always lucky wanderer, was in these years ever in debt for an outfit.
Boone and Hill made their way over the Blue Ridge and the Alleghanies and crossed the Holston and Clinch rivers.

Then they came upon the west fork of the Big Sandy and, believing that it would lead them to the Ohio, they continued for at least a hundred miles to the westward.