From the beginning of their race, Destiny had
painted them with the hue of the brief hour of the dying sun.
Chapter XI. Boone's Last Days
One spring day in 1799, there might have been observed a great
stir through the valley of the Kanawha. With the dawn, men were
ahorse, and women, too. Wagons crowded with human freight wheeled
over the rough country, and boats, large and small, were afloat
on the streams which pour into the Great Kanawha and at length
mingle with the Ohio at Point Pleasant, where the battle was
fought which opened the gates of Kentucky.
Some of the travelers poured into the little settlement at the
junction of the Elk and the Kanawha, where Charleston now lies.
Others, who had been later in starting or had come from a greater
distance, gathered along the banks of the Kanawha. At last shouts
from those stationed farthest up the stream echoed down the
valley and told the rest that what they had come out to see was
at hand.
Several pirogues drifted into view on the river, now brightening
in the sunshine. In the vessels were men and their families;
bales and bundles and pieces of household furnishings, heaped to
the gunwale; a few cattle and horses standing patiently. But it
was for one man above all that the eager eyes of the settlers
were watching, and him they saw clearly as his boat swung by--a
tall figure, erect and powerful, his keen friendly blue eyes
undimmed and his ruddy face unlined by time, though sixty-five
winters had frosted his black hair.
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