Historical Tales [calibre 5.4.1]

As regards the immediately succeeding events, it will suffice to say that Squire Boone, as Daniel's brother was called, returned to the settlements in the spring for supplies, the others having gone before, so that the daring hunter was left alone in that vast wilderness. Even his dog had deserted him, and the absolute solitude of nature surrounded him.

The movements we have described had not passed unknown to the Indians, and only the most extraordinary caution saved the solitary hunter from his dusky foes. He changed his camp every night, never sleeping twice in the same place. Often he found that it had been visited by Indians in his absence. Once a party of savages pursued him for many miles, until, by speed and skill, he threw them from his trail. Many and perilous were his adventures during his three months of lonely life in the woods and canebrakes of that fear-haunted land. Prowling wolves troubled him by night, prowling savages by day, yet fear never entered his bold heart, and cheerfulness never fled from his mind. He was the true pioneer, despising peril and proof against loneliness. At length his brother joined him, with horses and supplies, and the two adventurers passed another winter in the wilderness.

Several efforts were made in the ensuing years to people the country, but numbers of the settlers were slain by the Indians, whose hostility made the task so perilous that a permanent settlement was not made till 1775. The place then settled—a fine location on the Kentucky River—was called, in honor of its founder, Boonesborough. Here a small fort was built, to which the adventurer now brought his family, being determined to make it his place of abode, despite his dusky foes. "My wife and daughter," he says, "were the first white women that ever stood on the banks of Kentucky River."

It was a dangerous step they had taken. The savages, furious at this invasion of their hunting-grounds, were ever on the alert against their pale-faced foes. In the following spring Boone's daughter, with two other girls, who had thoughtlessly left the fort to gather flowers, were seized by ambushed Indians and hurried away into the forest depths.

Their loss was soon learned, and the distracted parents, with seven companions, were quickly in pursuit through the far-reaching forest. For two days, with the skill of trained scouts, they followed the trail which the girls, true hunters' daughters, managed to mark by shreds of their clothing which they tore off and dropped by the way.

The rapid pursuers at length came within sight of the camp of the Indians. Here they waited till darkness descended, approaching as closely as was safe. The two fathers, Boone and Calloway, now volunteered to attempt a rescue under cover of the night, and crept, with the acumen of practised frontiersmen, towards the Indian halting-place. Unluckily for them they were discovered and captured by the Indians, who dragged them exultingly to their camp. Here a council was quickly held, and the captives condemned to suffer the dreadful fate of savage reprisal,—death by torture and flame.

Morning had but fairly dawned when speedy preparations were made by the savages for their deadly work. They had no time to waste, for they knew not how many pursuers might be on their trail. The captives were securely bound to trees, before the eyes of their distracted daughters, and fagots hastily gathered for the fell purpose of their foes.

But while they were thus busied, the companions of Boone and Calloway had not been idle. Troubled by the non-return of the rescuers, the woodsmen crept up with the first dawn of day, saw the bloody work designed, and poured in a sudden storm of bullets on the savages, several of whom were stretched bleeding upon the ground. Then, with shouts of exultation, the ambushed whites burst from their covert, dashed into the camp before the savages could wreak their vengeance on their prisoners, and with renewed rifle-shots sent them away in panic flight. A knife-stroke or two released the captives, and the party returned in triumph to the fort.

The example of Boone and his companions in making their homes on Kentucky soil was soon followed by others, and within a year or two a number of settlements had been made, at various promising localities. The Indians did not view with equanimity this invasion of their hunting-grounds. Their old battles with each other were now replaced by persistent hostility to the whites, and they lurked everywhere around the feeble settlements, seizing stragglers, destroying cattle, and in every way annoying the daring pioneers.

In April, 1777, a party of a hundred of them fiercely attacked Boonesborough, but were driven off by the rifles of the settlers. In July they came again, now doubled in numbers, and for two days assailed the fort, but with the same ill-success as before. Similar attacks were made on the other settlements, and a state of almost incessant warfare prevailed, in which Boone showed such valor and activity that he became the terror of his savage foes, who, in compliment to his daring, christened him "The Great Long-Knife." On one occasion when two Indian warriors assailed him in the woods he manoeuvred so skilfully as to draw the fire of both, and then slew the pair of them, the one with his rifle, the other, in hand-to-hand fight, with his deadly hunting-knife.

But the bold pioneer was destined soon to pass through an experience such as few men have safely endured. It was now February, 1778. For three years the settlers had defied their foes, Boone, in despite of them, hesitating not to traverse the forest alone, with rifle and hunting-knife, in pursuit of game. In one of these perilous excursions he suddenly found himself surrounded by a party of a hundred Shawnese warriors, who were on their way to attack his own fort. He fled, but was overtaken and secured. Soon after, the savages fell in with a large party of whites who were making salt at the Salt Lick springs, and captured them all, twenty-seven in number.