CONCLUSION
For a time the little settlement on the Kentucky grew and prospered
without much notice from the Indians; but it was not long before the
first rumblings of the Revolution were heard in that far-off place; it
was learned, with alarm, that the colonies were rising in arms against
England.
When the clash came and the colonists began to strike determinedly for
their rights, the English agents in the northwest began operations
which once more lighted the fires of border warfare. They bribed the
savages with gifts, they supplied them with guns and ammunition and bid
them wipe out the little settlements which courage and toil had built
up in the wilderness.
Along the borders of the north and the west the terrible war-whoop once
more rang out, and the tomahawk and scalping knife resumed their deadly
work. But Boonesborough remained calm and unruffled; its settlers
hunted and fished, cleared the land and planted scanty crops of corn.
In the winter of 1776 a man was killed by a swift-moving war party; not
until the summer, about the very time when the Congress at Philadelphia
was giving to the world its first great message of liberty, did the
great war cast its first ominous shadow upon Boonesborough.
The July sun shone upon the bright waters of the Kentucky; the breeze
stirred among the trees. A bark canoe, propelled by the handsome Betsey
Collaway, daughter of a settler, her younger sister Frances, and a
young daughter of Daniel Boone, was darting here and there like a bird.
The girls had decked the little craft with wild flowers, gathered along
the banks, and the ring of their laughter floated across the river in
happy chorus.
Any one listening might have noticed that the joyous sound suddenly
died away. For the canoe, as it drifted under a high bank, shoved its
nose into the mud; and as the girls were about to push it off, they
saw the bushes part almost beside them and a number of Indians, their
fingers upon their lips calling for silence, step to the water’s edge.
Sheer fright kept the girls mute for an instant; and in the next it was
too late to cry out, for the savages had entered the canoe, and were
threatening them with their hatchets.
When they saw them huddled, overcome with terror, at one end of the
canoe, they seized the paddles and drove the craft out into the river;
night was falling and the passage was not noticed from the fort; and so
the Indians gained the other shore. The girls were forced out of the
boat and with the weapons of their merciless captors ever threatening
them they were led away through the forest.
The girls were first missed by the women of their families; a search
showed that they were not within the stockade. Instantly the news
spread; men dropped their tasks and became alert and active.
Questions flew about; and Sandy Campbell, coming from a runlet where he
had been fishing, caught the sense of them.
“Girls!” said he. “Why, I saw them up the river a little way, in a
canoe.”
A half dozen bark crafts were in a very few moments being driven up
and across the stream. The twilight was long and the July day still
persisted, but nothing of the missing ones was to be seen. Long and
loud the men in the canoes shouted; but no sound came in answer. Eph
Taylor, from the craft in which were also Sandy and Oliver, spied
something under a bank.
“A canoe!” he cried.
In a few moments the other searchers were at their sides; all made for
the bank. It was the canoe used by the girls!
“Take care!” warned Boone. “Don’t anybody get ashore!”
From his own canoe the backwoodsman scanned the bank. The daylight was
still strong enough for him to see the imprint of the moccasined feet
in the soft ooze.
“Injuns!” said Boone.
A murmur went up from the settlers; the import of the signs was plain.
“They have made off into the woods!” cried one of the men, excitedly.
“We must not waste a minute; we must take the trail at once!”
Boone pointed grimly at the sun, which was now well down upon the
horizon line.
“In a quarter of an hour it will be dark,” he said. “And no trailer
that ever stepped can follow an Injun track by torch-light. We’ll have
to wait for morning.”
The night was spent in seeing to rifles and pistols and getting some
snatches of sleep. At the first faint sign of dawn the trailing party,
in which was Boone, Oliver and his two friends, took up the signs at
the river brink and followed them off into the woods.
As cunning as foxes the Indians, knowing that they would be swiftly
hunted by the whites, took pains to hide their trail from the very
start. And the methods used threw off the trackers for a short time.
Into a dense cane-brake led the tracks, and then they seemed to
disappear. Keenly, eagerly the hunters sought here and there, but the
wile of the savage baffled them.
“Lads,” said Boone, finally, wiping his brow, and leaning upon his long
rifle, “there’s no use in wasting time. As soon as the varmints got
into the cane they separated and slipped through it like ghosts. And we
might hunt for hours and never pick up the trail.”
“Well?” asked one of the men. “What shall we do?”
Boone led the way to the point at which the footprints ceased.
“Here’s where they separate,” said he, “but the separation is not for
good; they keep the same general direction. And that shows that they
intend to meet somewhere further on when they think we’ve been thrown
off the track completely.”
The woodsmen looked at the tracks once more and nodded their
appreciation.
“Suppose we work on that,” proceeded Boone. “This bit of cane is a big
one; let’s skirt it and run the chance of coming on the trail at the
other side.”
At once this was decided on by the party; with the long, swinging
stride of the hunter they journeyed around the cane; this forced them
to cover some thirty miles, but at the end they found that Boone’s
reasoning had been correct; the Indians had come together somewhere in
the tangle and there lay their trail, plainly read by all.
Trained woodsmen all, with the exception of the three boys, and even
these possessed no mean skill, the settlers looked to Boone for the
word of command.
“From now on, lads,” said the backwoodsman, “we shall have less
trouble. Look, the trail leads directly to a buffalo path; they think
they’ve thrown us off, and they’ve grown careless.”
Softly, swiftly the trailers struck into the path; as Boone had said,
the savages had grown careless; their trail was broad and deep and
could have been followed by the least skilful.
The day was well advanced, and the hardy band had covered a full forty
miles through the tangled wilderness. But they were trained to long
journeys and did not tire.
“We’re gaining,” said Boone, after an hour or so of steady following on
the heavy track. “They passed here no more than a half hour ago.”
The caution of the party increased; they knew the savage nature of the
Indians. Let the latter get a whisper of pursuit and the lives of their
captives would be snuffed out. The long shadows began to fall in the
forest; the patches of sky to be seen through the tree tops grew gray.
Suddenly Boone held up his hand.
“Here they are!” said he.
Through the dense growth he pointed to a party of Indians; a few of
them were dressing freshly killed game; others were engaged in kindling
a fire. Bound to trees near at hand were the three girls.
“Now,” said Boone, as he looked to his rifle, “make your shots count;
and above all don’t allow any of them to get near the girls.”
At the word, the whites rushed forward. At the first crash among the
underbrush the savages grasped their weapons; but the long rifles
cracked before they could act. The conditions under which the “beads”
were drawn made the shots of the trailers difficult; but in spite
of this a number of the Indians were hit; and all fled away into
the woods, leaving the greater part of their arms and all of their
ammunition behind them.
There was the utmost rejoicing in Boonesborough the next day when the
trailers returned bringing the three girls with them, frightened, but
safe and sound.
This incident served as a warning to the settlers on the Kentucky; the
war had finally made its way to their lonely fort. Day after day they
found the tracks of scouting parties all about in the forests; hostile
shots began to ring in the distance. And then began the fights and
sieges for which the sturdy stockade built by Boone and his companions
became famous. Encompassed many times by hundreds of savages, with
the arrows and bullets flying thick as hail about it, the fort stood
strong and untaken. And through it all went Oliver and Eph Taylor and
Sandy Campbell, through it all went the heroic Boone, ever leading,
ever daring the wilderness and its crafty savages, always strong under
reverses, always wise in victory.
And when the great war was done and liberty was achieved by the
colonies, the settlers came in greatly increased numbers, drawn by the
wonder stories of Kentucky and the magic name of Boone.
And as the commonwealth grows strong, its wilderness falls before
the axe of the pioneer, its broad farms smile where the Shawnee once
roamed, the whistles of steamboats sound upon the streams which knew
only the prow of the bark canoe, the thoughts of its sons and daughters
go back to the old days; and they know that the greatness of Kentucky
is founded upon the bold spirit and the long rifle of Daniel Boone.