Sometimes he paused for a day with them. Once at
least--this, was in Cincinnati where he was taking on
supplies--some one asked him why, at his age, he was leaving the
settled country to dare the frontier once more.
"Too crowded," he answered; "I want more elbow-room!"
Boone settled at the Femme Osage Creek on the Missouri River,
twenty-five miles above St. Charles, where the Missouri flows
into the Mississippi. There were four other Kentucky families at
La Charette, as the French inhabitants called the post, but these
were the only Americans. The Spanish authorities granted Boone
840 acres of land, and here Daniel built the last cabin home he
was to erect for himself and his Rebecca.
The region pleased him immensely. The governmental system, for
instance, was wholly to his mind. Taxes were infinitesimal. There
were no elections, assemblies, or the like. A single magistrate,
or Syndic, decided all disputes and made the few regulations and
enforced them. There were no land speculators, no dry-mouthed
sons of the commercial Tantalus, athirst for profits. Boone used
to say that his first years in Missouri were the happiest of his
life, with the exception of his first long hunt in Kentucky.
In 1800 he was appointed Syndic of the district of Femme Osage,
which office he filled for four years, until Louisiana became
American territory.
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