At the close of the summer of 1778, the settlement on the Yadkin saw a
company on pack horses approaching in the direction from the western
wilderness. They had often seen parties of emigrants departing in that
direction, but it was a novel spectacle to see one return from that
quarter. At the head of that company was a blooming youth, scarcely yet
arrived at the age of manhood. It was the eldest surviving son of Daniel
Boone. Next behind him was a matronly woman, in weeds, and with a
countenance of deep dejection. It was Mrs. Boone. Still behind was the
daughter who had been a captive with the Indians. The remaining children
were too young to feel deeply. The whole group was respectable in
appearance, though clad in skins, and the primitive habiliments of the
wilderness. It might almost have been mistaken for a funeral
procession. It stopped at the house of Mr. Bryan, the father of Mrs.
Boone.
The people of the settlement were not long in collecting to hear news
from the west, and learn the fate of their former favorite, Boone, and
his family. As Mrs. Boone, in simple and backwood's phrase, related the
thrilling story of their adventures, which needed no trick of venal
eloquence to convey it to the heart, an abundant tribute of tears from
the hearers convinced the bereaved narrator that true sympathy is
natural to the human heart. As they shuddered at the dark character of
many of the incidents related, it was an hour of triumph,
notwithstanding their pity, for those wiser ones, who took care, in an
under tone, to whisper that it might be remembered that they had
predicted all that had happened.
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