rs to a bear chase in the adjoining hills. William surpassed the Indian himself in imitating the bark of the wolf, the hoot of the owl, the whistle of the whippoorwill.
Daniel Boone came often to Mulberry Hill in leggings and moccasins, ever hunting, hunting, hunting beaver, bear and coon, wolves and wild-cats, deer and foxes, and going back to trade their skins in Maryland for frontier furniture, knives and buttons, scissors, nails, and tea.
Upon his shot-pouch strap Boone fastened his moccasin awl with a buckhorn handle made out of an old clasp-knife, and carried along with him a roll of buckskin to mend his mocassins. While the grizzled hunter stitched deftly at his moccasins, William and York sat by, engaged in the same pastime, for wherever William went, York was his shadow.
"Since poor Richard's uncertain fate I can never trust the boy alone," said his mother. "York, it is your business to guard your young master." And he did, to the ends of the earth.
When "Uncle Daniel," rolled in a blanket, threw himself down on a bed of leaves and slept with his feet to the fire to prevent rheumatism, York and William lay down too, sleeping by turns and listening for Indians.
At daylight, loosely belting their fringed hunting shirts into wallets for carrying bread, a chunk of jerked beef, or tow for the gun, with tomahawk on the right side and scalping knife on the left, each in a leathern case, again they set off under the reddening forest.
Skilled in the lore of woodcraft, watchful of clouds and stars and sun, an intimate student of insect life and own brother to the wily beaver, bear, and buffalo, William Clark was becoming a scientist.
Returning from the chase with the same sort of game that graced the Saxon board before the Norman conquest, he sat down to hear the talk of statesmen. For when Clark's commission was revoked, Kentucky, unprotected, called a convention to form a State.
Affairs that in European lands are left to kings and their ministers, were discussed in the firelight of every cabin. Public safety demanded action. Exposed on three
