examine, with respect to their location and fertility, the lands
which he visited, and to report his findings upon his return. The
secret expedition must have been transacted with commendable
circumspection; for although in after years it became common
knowledge among his friends that he had acted as the company's
agent, Boone himself consistently refrained from betraying the
confidence of his employers. Upon a similar mission, Gist had
carefully concealed from the suspicious Indians the fact that he
carried a compass, which they wittily termed "land stealer"; and
Washington likewise imposed secrecy upon his land agent Crawford,
insisting that the operation be carried on under the guise of
hunting game." The discreet Boone, taciturn and given to keeping
his own counsel, in one instance at least deemed it advantageous
to communicate the purpose of his mission to some hunters, well
known to him, in order to secure the results of their information
in regard to the best lands they had encountered in the course of
their hunting expedition. Boone came among the hunters, known as
the "Blevens connection," at one of their Tennessee station camps
on their return from a long hunt in Kentucky, in order, as
expressed in the quaint phraseology of the period, to be
"informed of the geography and locography of these woods, saying
that he was employed to explore them by Henderson & Company." The
acquaintance which Boone on this occasion formed with a member of
the party, Henry Scaggs, the skilled hunter and explorer, was
soon to bear fruit; for shortly afterward Scaggs was employed as
prospector by the same land company. In 1764 Scaggs had passed
through Cumberland Gap and hunted for the season on the
Cumberland; and accordingly the following year, as the agent of
Richard Henderson and Company, he was despatched on an extended
exploration to the lower Cumberland, fixing his station at the