"The young Daniel often demonstrated a tendency to wander off without much concern for the worry his absence might cause others. However much he loved his mother, and however much he later loved his wife, Rebecca, his urge to hunt and wander and explore always came first.

From the time he was a boy Boone had a flair for the dramatic. He seemed to know instinctively how to make himself noticed, remembered. As a young man he began to create for himself the role of Daniel Boone, and he spent much of his life perfecting that role. Despite his later protestation that he was ' but a common man,' he seemed aware from early in his youth that he was not just playing himself but a type, what Emerson would later call a Representative Man. Boone would embody in his actions and attitude the aspirations and character of a whole era.

At least once, Daniel became so distracted by his own explorations that he forgot the hours of the day, his home, the fact that he was supposed to help his mother. Before it got dark, Sarah had to round up the cattle herself and do the milking, strain the milk, and put it in the springhouse to stay cool. Calm and prayerful, she worked at churning butter from clabbered milk. But when Daniel did not come home by the next morning and still had not returned by noon, she had no choice but to walk the five miles back to town to get help." --excerpted from the book