Daniel Boone, page 199 by John S.C. Abbott
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nd went to the country on the Osage river, taking for a camp-keeper a negro boy about twelve or fourteen years of age. Soon after preparing his camp and laying in his supplies for the winter, he was taken sick and lay a long time in camp. The horses were hobbled out on the range. After a period of stormy weather, there came a pleasant and delightful day, and Boone felt able to walk out. With his staff--for he was quite feeble--he took the boy to the summit of a small eminence and marked out the ground in shape and size of a grave, and then gave the following directions.
"He instructed the boy, in case of his death, to wash and lay his body straight, wrapped up in one of the cleanest blankets. He was then to construct a kind of shovel, and with that instrument and the hatchet to dig a grave exactly as he had marked it out. He was then to drag the body to the place and put it in the grave, which he was directed to cover up, putting posts at the head and foot. Poles were to be placed around and above the surface, the trees to be marked so that the place could be easily found by his friends; the horses were to be caught, the blankets and skins gathered up, with some special instructions about the old rifle, and various messages to his family. All these directions were given, as the boy afterwards declared, with entire calmness, and as if he were giving instructions about ordinary business. He soon recovered, broke up his camp, and returned homeward without the usual signs of a winter's hunt."
One writer says Colonel Boone went on a trapping excursion up the Grand River. This stream rises in the southern part of Iowa, and flows in a southerly course into the Missouri. He was entirely alone. Paddling his canoe up the lonely banks of the Missouri, he entered the Grand River, and established his camp in a silent sheltered cove, where an experienced hunter would with difficulty find it.
Here he first laid in his supply of venison, turkeys, and bear's meat, and then commenced his trapping operation, wh