"Forget the coonskin cap; he never wore one." So begins poet and novelist Robert Morgan's new biography of the famed frontiersman, Daniel Boone. Instead, the great man preferred a black felt hat to keep his noggin warm and dry in the wilderness.

And that's not the only piece of the cherished legend to fall by the wayside in Morgan's 500-or-so-page "Boone: A Biography" (Algonquin, $29.95). It turns out that Boone didn't discover Kentucky and wasn't its first settler, didn't discover the Cumberland Gap, didn't dig ginseng out of the forest floor, didn't like to fight, and, having some education ٠enough to spell his own name correctly, most likely didn't carve "D. Boon kilt a bar" on an old tree trunk.

It is to Morgan's everlasting credit that the factual Boone he presents is every bit a man in full, and a far more engaging and fascinating one than the legendary caricature. His "Boone" is a minor masterpiece of the biographer's art, deeply informed, skillfully presented and a delight to read.

 Morgan won the literary jackpot eight years ago when Oprah chose his novel "Gap Creek" for her book club. He drew heavily on his Appalachian roots (he is a North Carolina native) for that book, and he does the same in "Boone." Morgan confesses that his rural childhood imbued him with a strong affinity for the backwoodsman: "Living on a small farm, without a truck or a tractor or car, plowing our fields with a horse, keeping milk and butter in the springhouse, listening to stories about the old days by the fireplace or on the porch in summer, I always felt an intimate contact with the past, with the Indians, with the frontier."

Morgan covers all of Boone's long and varied career that included hunting, fishing, pathfinding, Indian fighting, surveying, legislating and a fascination with Freemasonry. But, as he reveals, Boone always thought of himself as a woodsman first and foremost. And what a woodsman! Morgan relates his very real wilderness achievements against formidable natural and human obstacles. In one particularly elegiac section, he tells the story of Boone's months-long, solitary sojourn deep in the forests and open bluegrass savannas of Kentucky. With only his rifle and his wits, the frontiersman wandered amid breathtaking scenery and abundant game, sleeping beneath the stars and glorying in his existence. Morgan beautifully compares this experience in the molding of Boone's convictions and sense of himself with that of Thoreau's at Walden Pond.

Morgan demolishes still another favored notion when he writes that the name "Kentucky" does not mean "dark and bloody ground" but rather comes from the Iroquois word Kanta-ke, which means "the meadow land." There had been Indian warfare aplenty there, though, and the tribes policed the area, making it the modern equivalent of a natural hunting preserve. The great irony, not lost on Boone himself, was that his explorations and determination to settle this paradise in the end helped ruin it. Later in life, as he looked about and saw his white neighbors ravishing the landscape, Boone could only pull up stakes and head further west.

The tragedy and often senseless brutality of frontier conflict is also well communicated by Morgan. Unlike many of his fellow whites, Boone genuinely liked and understood the Indians and was even adopted by the Shawnees. He always sought peaceful outcomes to confrontations through reason and negotiation, and was sometimes lucky in facing Indian chiefs who wanted the same. But there were pigheaded and cruel Indians as well, capable of stomach-churning violence and torture, and Boone occasionally found himself forced to fight.

Morgan's depiction of Boonsborough's 1778 siege is one of the most stirring portions of the book and is presented as every bit as colorful and fantastic, if not more so, than in legend. Here Boone did indeed plug an Indian at 200 yards as the brave mooned the fort from a treetop, and his daughter Jemima carried water and powder to the men on the walls, nonchalantly plucking a musket ball from her own backside and keeping at her tasks.

Daniel Boone has inspired countless poets (Walt Whitman, Lord Byron), writers (James Fennimore Cooper), painters (Thomas Cole) and filmmakers (Walt Disney) down the years. Robert Morgan will almost certainly not be the last in this ongoing list, but he will be among the best. "Boone" is that good.

Robert Morgan will read from and sign copies of "Boone" at Dahlgren Hall on the Fairhope campus of Faulkner Community College on Thursday at 1 p.m. He will also appear at the Fairhope Public Library that evening from 6 to 8 p.m. Both events are free and open to the public. Call 928-5295 for more information.

John Sledge edits the Press-Register's Books page. He may be reached at the Press-Register, P.O. Box 2488, Mobile, AL 36652.