trace left the hillside and turned north-westwardly into this branch and followed it down to the mother stream. At this point some consultation was held among the officers, and it was here that Boone, whose great experience and whose thorough knowledge of the country gave his opinion much weight, suggested that, instead of following this trace and going down the river, they should follow the ridge and strike the Licking two miles above, cross at Abnee's or Bedinger's mills, and thus come down to the banks of the Licking some two and a half miles above Blue Licks, and cross the Licking into a wide valley from which, a mile eastwardly, they would gain the ridge along which the trace pursued its way into Fleming and Mason counties. . . . The command 'Forward!' rang through the woods and echoed along the hillsides, and down the fateful trace to the Blue Licks ford the cavalcade pursued its march. At the point where the trace strikes the Licking the valley is a quarter of a mile wide. It is two hundred feet on the western side, where the Kentucky pioneers emerged from the forest, and some
