could set about their preparations for supper neighbors began to arrive
with an abundance and variety of food, prompted equally by a desire
to serve their leader and impatient curiosity to hear his story. The
party made a hearty meal in the open, and then Boone related to them
all that had befallen him since the New Year’s Day on which he set out
for the Lower Blue Licks with the band of salt-makers. The tale was
long in the telling, for the description of the Indian village and the
customs of its inhabitants was new to the auditors. They, in their
turn, had many matters of more or less moment to mention to Boone, so
that the summer night was far advanced when this man of iron turned to
his couch for a much needed rest.
The next day work upon the necessary repairs to the fort was entered
into with vigor. From time to time settlers, alarmed by the urgency
of the call, came in with their families. Men, women and children
were kept busy from early morning until night, for there was work in
which all could take some part. When the fourth, and then the fifth,
day passed without the appearance of the Indians, there was some
inclination to desist, but Boone insisted upon a completion of the
preparations without delay, and would not allow any of the men to
return to their farms until the fort was in a satisfactory state.
After ten days’ hard labor the stockade was in the most effective
condition attainable to resist attack. The line of palisades had been
made entire, new gates had been erected, the blockhouses strengthened,
double bastions constructed, provisions laid in, and cattle collected.
Just before the termination of the task, one of the captives from
Chillicothe, who had contrived to escape shortly after Boone left,
arrived at the fort. From him it was learned that the war-party,
disconcerted by Boone’s escape, had postponed its departure for three
weeks, and meanwhile had sent to Detroit for a reinforcement of whites.
The latter news was alarming, but it was offset by the consideration
that the delay greatly increased the chance of the hoped-for aid from
the Holston arriving in time.
Boone now determined to adopt Clark’s tactics of “carrying the war into
Africa.” He thought that by arousing the apprehensions of the Indians
for the safety of their own towns, he might succeed in diverting the
impending attack against Boonesborough, or at least in inducing the
leaders of the expedition to detach a portion of their strength for the
defence of their country. With this idea, then, he took nineteen men
and started on a rapid march for an Indian village on Paint Creek, a
branch of the Scioto. Hardy, who was now a full-fledged “gun,” made
one of the party.
On the way frequent traces were discovered that indicated that small
parties of Indian scouts were abroad in Kentucky, and pointed to
unusual preparation for the ensuing expedition. When within four miles
of their objective point, Boone’s band suddenly fell in with a force of
thirty warriors on the way to Kentucky. The two bodies had approached
closely before either discovered the presence of the other, but
immediately they did so the men on both sides sprang behind trees and a
typical backwoods fight followed.
These guerilla combats always took the form of so many independent
duels, each individual acting upon his own responsibility and
without direction. Every man singled out an adversary and awaited an
opportunity to get a shot at some exposed part of his body. Frequent
ruses, such as poking a cap out upon the end of a ramrod, were employed
to induce an enemy to show himself. The Indians almost invariably
defeated regular troops in this kind of skirmishing. The latter adhered
to their accustomed tactics of charging in close order and fell easy
victims to the active savages. On the other hand, the backwoodsmen
were greatly the superior of the redskins in fighting from cover. Such
men as Boone possessed all the cunning and dogged patience of the
Indian, whilst vastly excelling him in marksmanship.
In such a case as the present, where the disparity in numbers was not
overwhelming, the ultimate issue was a foregone conclusion. After two
or three hours of conflict the Indians took advantage of the growing
dusk to withdraw, abandoning their horses and baggage. What their loss
in killed and wounded was had to be left, as usual, to conjecture. The
settlers escaped without any casualties. Immediately after this affair
Boone learned, to his dismay, that the war-party from Chillicothe had
already set out and was now between him and Boonesborough.
Boone now started for the settlement with all possible speed, his front
and flanks guarded by scouts feeling for the large body of Indians
which he was striving to overtake. On the third day the Indians were
reported to be but a few miles away and immediately in the course of
the returning settlers. Boone now made a détour and redoubled his
speed. The army of warriors was successfully passed and left behind.
The raiders entered Boonesborough, after their three hundred miles’
march, in time to allow the occupants of the fort nearly twenty-four
hours’ time for preparation.
The following day the Indian force made its appearance. It consisted
of about four hundred warriors, for the most part Shawnees, but
including Wyandots, Miamis and Delawares. They were under the command
of Blackfish, Boone’s adoptive father. Accompanying the Indians was
a small body of French-Canadians led by Captain De Quindre, of the
Detroit militia. This formidable battalion marched to within a few
hundred yards of the stockade and sent forward a white flag with a
demand upon the garrison to “surrender the fort in the name of his
Britannic Majesty.”
There were at Boonesborough fewer than seventy males capable of bearing
arms, and a number of women and children. Whilst the defences were in
good condition and a plentiful supply of ammunition was on hand, the
settlers were not fully prepared to resist a protracted siege, such
as the present situation promised. There was far from a sufficiency
of water stored, and the cattle, which was collected at the time of
the first alarm, had been permitted to return to the woods. In fact, a
party that had been sent out the previous day to round up and bring in
some beeves had not yet returned to the stockade.
Despite these drawbacks and the apparent hopelessness of resistance,
Boone did not for an instant entertain the idea of capitulating. Nor
did he canvass the opinions of his men, but took it for granted that
they were of the same mind as himself. In answer to the summons,
however, he declared that the garrison needed time for consideration,
and so sure of ultimate success were the assailants that they granted
two days’ respite from hostilities. This intermission was employed by
the settlers in filling all their water-vessels and in getting the
party with the cattle safely within the walls.
At the termination of the truce De Quindre approached the fort for the
purpose of receiving the answer of the defenders. Boone had devised
a ruse to deceive the Canadian as to the number of men in the place.
When De Quindre neared the gate, which was thrown open that he and
Boone, with their escorts, might meet just outside of it, the officers
perceived seventy backwoodsmen grouped in the foreground, whilst
standing about in other distant parts of the square were some thirty
more “buckskins.” The latter, however, were women and girls dressed in
the clothing of their husbands and fathers.
To the amazement of Captain De Quindre, Boone announced the determination
of the garrison to defend the post, at the same time thanking the enemy
for the time allowed the defenders for the completion of their
preparations. De Quindre was chagrined to realize that he had been
tricked but did not evince any resentment and, after a brief consultation
with Blackfish, returned to Boone with a fresh proposition. He declared
that the attacking party was not in the least desirous of resorting to
severity, and that if Boone and a few of the other leading men in the
fort would meet the Indian chiefs on the following day, a treaty could
be effected upon the most advantageous terms to the settlers.
Boone was quite satisfied that some deception was intended by this
proposition, but he readily acceded to it because every day’s delay
improved the prospect of relief arriving from the Holston. It was
agreed that Boone and eight of his men should go out to a spot about
eighty yards from the fort and there confer with a delegation from the
Indian camp, both parties to be absolutely unarmed. The truce was to
be extended to the termination of this conference.
The commissioners met as agreed but instead of an equal number of
Indians, Blackfish appeared attended by eighteen warriors, so that
there were two Indians to each white man. Boone took no notice of
this early indication of treachery, for he had posted twenty guns in
concealment behind the palisades ready for an emergency. A table with
writing materials had been brought out, that any agreement which might
be arrived at could be inscribed and signed.
Blackfish opened the proceedings with a speech in which he pretended to
be moved almost to the point of tears. He professed to be heartbroken
at the desertion of his son Sheltowee, and reproached him with
ingratitude in leaving the Indians after their kind treatment of him.
To this Boone replied that it was but natural that he should cleave to
his own people. That he had been allowed no voice in the adoption, and
could not justly have been expected to observe it. That he was truly
grateful to Blackfish and his tribe for their gentle treatment of him
and would wish for nothing better than to be on friendly terms with
them. But if they persisted upon attacking the whites, he, Boone,
would fight them to the bitter end.
This point having been disposed of, they proceeded to the question of
the treaty. On the single condition of the settlers owning allegiance
to the King of Great Britain, the Indian chiefs promised to withdraw
to their own country and to leave them in peaceful possession of
Boonesborough and their property. They did not demand hostages, nor
any other pledge of sincerity. The signatures of Boone and his eight
companions to a brief agreement embodying the conditions on both sides
would be sufficient to secure the retirement of the Indians from
Kentucky and the avoidance of future hostilities.
This absurdly liberal proposition bore all the earmarks of a
subterfuge. Boone knew full well that these Indians had not been at
the trouble of coming fifty leagues for the sole purpose of inducing
the allegiance of a band of backwoodsmen to the King of Great Britain.
He felt sure that the proposed treaty would be preliminary to some
contemplated treachery, and that it would be shortly followed by some
act rendering it null and void. He had, therefore, little hesitancy
about signing it; and, moreover, he wished to play the game to a stage
where its object would become apparent.
Boone, therefore, expressed himself as highly gratified at the liberal
terms offered and willing to accept them. The agreement was accordingly
drawn up and signed by Boone and the eight men accompanying him, as
well as by Blackfish, the other Indians, and De Quindre. Blackfish now
appeared to be overjoyed at the happy termination of the affair and
suggested that the amicable understanding should be signalized by an
old Indian ceremony indicative of friendship. This required that each
hand of every one of the whites should be grasped and shaken by an
Indian in token of good faith.
Boone perceived the trap involved in this artifice but he was
determined that the Indians should have no excuse for the treachery
which they clearly contemplated. He agreed to the proposal and two of
the redskins advanced on each of the whites and seized his hands and
arms. At the same instant, Blackfish shouted: “Go!” and his followers
attempted to drag the settlers away. But this was not so easy a task as
they had imagined that it would be. A desperate struggle ensued. Boone,
Kenton, Montgomery, and Buchanan quickly threw off their assailants
and felled them with their fists. They then turned to the assistance of
others less strong than themselves. At the same time the rifles in the
stockade began to crack and the Indians broke away and fled to cover.
The affair of the treaty had ended as Boone expected from the first
that it would, but it was not without good results to the defenders.
They had gained one more day and so increased the likelihood of succor.
But better still, whilst the parley was in progress a little band of
five men from Logan’s had entered the fort and among them Stephen
Hancock, one of the best riflemen in Kentucky.
Boone now proceeded without a moment’s delay to assign the men to their
several posts in anticipation of the attack which he felt sure would
not now long be delayed. Women were also detailed for specific duties
at certain points, some to supply food and water to the men, others to
load guns, and not a few, in the last resort, to man port-holes.
XIII.
BOONESBOROUGH IS BESIEGED
The night attack upon the stockade--“Not a shot, mind, till I fire,
and then let them have it”--The Indians are repulsed but come again
with firebrands--They set fire to a cabin--Hardy’s brave fight with
the flames--“That was well done, son,--very well done”--The savages
are beaten off after fierce fighting--A renegade negro snipes the
settlers from a tree-top--Boone puts a bullet through his brain at
long range--The Indians attempt to undermine the fort--The scheme is
frustrated and they raise the siege--Boone goes after his family.
Fortunately for the brave hearts at Boonesborough, the summer nights
afforded but brief cover of darkness. In fact, at the time of the siege
a bright moon shone during the early hours and only for a short space
before dawn was it possible for a man to approach within thirty or
forty yards of the palisades without detection. Nevertheless, serious
determined night attacks by the entire Indian force could hardly have
failed to overwhelm the little garrison in time. During that dangerous
period Boone required every man to be alert at his post. At other
times of the night sentries were placed, but those off immediate duty
slept with their rifles ready to the hand and within a few feet of the
port-holes they were required to command. Boone never closed his eyes
between suns whilst the siege lasted but passed his time on the lookout
and in visiting his sentries. For rest he depended upon snatches of
sleep in the daytime when favorable opportunities occurred. Very few
hours sufficed to recuperate him after the hardest day.
The night succeeding the fiasco of the treaty was wearing towards its
close. It was the hour preceding dawn, when all nature seems to be
silently crouching for the spring into the life of a new day. Boone
stood at the port-hole of the upper story of one of the blockhouses,
the cool breeze from the west fanning his brow. A sigh escaped him
as he thought of the many lives that had been sacrificed for the
possession of “the dark and bloody ground” of Kentucky, and the many
more that would be demanded. For Boone was a fighter of necessity, not
from choice. Action was the very spice of life to him and he loved the
stress of conflict, as every strong man must, but he found no pleasure
in bloodshed. Boone killed as a measure of self-preservation and for
the protection of others. Although he was moved as much as any man
to sorrow and indignation at the thought of the women and children
barbarously murdered or carried to a cruel captivity, he never allowed
vengeful passion to sway him. And the stern, cool temper in which he
met the foe made him the more terrible and dangerous antagonist. Such
he looked now, his mind having passed on to the thought that, no matter
what the cost, Kentucky must and should be held by the people who were
willing to convert its wilderness into fair fields and rich pastures.
From time to time the tireless watcher moved from a port-hole and
stepped noiselessly to another, commanding a different direction. The
ordinary man could with difficulty have discerned an object upon the
ground immediately below Boone’s position, but the keen eyes of the
hunter, accustomed to the gloom of the forest, penetrated the darkness
to at least the distance of fifty yards.
Suddenly the silence was broken by the hoot of an owl. Boone listened
intently. In a few seconds the cry was repeated, as though by a bird
at some distance from the first. Boone stretched forth his foot and
touched the form of a sleeper upon the floor. In an instant Kenton was
on his feet, and at the same moment the owl’s cry again floated over
the night air to them.
“Injuns on the move, Kenton,” said Boone in low tones and without a
trace of excitement in his voice. “Give Hardy a jolt. Now you two slip
round the stockade in opposite directions. Have every man stand to his
post as quietly as possible and wait for the signal from me. Not a
shot, mind, till I fire, and then let them have it. Quick! They’re in
the clearing already, if I’m not mistaken.”
When Kenton and Hardy had disappeared down the ladder, Boone took up
his rifle and ran his hand over the flint-lock. Satisfied that it was
ready for service, he stood it against the wall by his side and peered
out of the port-hole. Hardly more than five minutes had elapsed when
he imagined that he discerned a dark wall moving towards him. A minute
later he was certain. The Indians were about eighty yards away and
stealing forward as noiselessly as shadows. Without removing his eyes
from the advancing foe, Boone slowly brought his rifle into position
and dropped his right cheek upon the stock. When he judged the line of
redskins to be fifty yards distant he pressed the trigger.
Boone’s signal shot had hardly sounded when seventy reports rang out
almost in a volley. The Indians checked in surprise. Then with a yell
they rushed forward, and again seventy trusty guns spoke with tongues
of fire. Still the redskins came on, discharging their pieces as they
ran. They were within a few paces of the stockade--some, indeed, had
reached it--when once more the defenders fired into their ranks. Had
they pushed the assault the savages might have carried the fort with
their tomahawks, but they checked again and then fell back to reload.
Then occurred one of those strange lulls that commonly happen in
fights and even in battles. No movement was detectable on either side
and comparative silence prevailed. Suddenly Kenton’s voice was heard
serenely singing the lines of a popular ballad of the time:
“If they hang poor Paddy for a thing like that,
Whatever will they do with me?”
“That fellow will sing going to his own funeral,” muttered Boone, but
he was pleased to hear the cheery laugh that ran round the stockade in
response to Kenton’s song.
Anon the chiefs were heard exhorting their tribesmen to renewed
efforts, and soon it was seen that they had kindled a fire. This was
far enough back to be out of effective range from the fort. As soon
as the flames sprang up, a long line of the redskins filed past the
fire and each one of them ignited a resin-soaked torch. The defenders
instantly divined the purport of this movement, and realized that they
were about to be subjected to one of the most dreaded forms of attack.
When employed determinedly, fire was the most effective auxiliary the
Indians could enlist. Even though they failed to burn a breach in the
defences, they gained the advantage of drawing a number of riflemen
from the firing line to the task of fighting the flames.
The garrison had enjoyed but a brief respite when the Indians were
again upon them. Just as the first gray tints of dawn appeared in the
sky, and before Kenton had finished the third verse of his lyric, the
ranks of dusky warriors began to advance in a wide crescent formation
calculated to envelop three sides of the stockade. Interspersed through
their line were some thirty or forty torch-bearers, who immediately
became the marks of the riflemen. Many of the savages carried bundles
of sticks and grass to be laid against the walls of the cabins and
blockhouses and lighted. Boone was now in the square, where he could
best direct operations against this new form of attack.
When they had come within one hundred yards of the palisades the
Indians rushed forward with the most unearthly yells and whoops. The
efforts of the defenders were chiefly directed towards preventing the
men bearing torches and combustibles from approaching near enough to
lay the latter or to throw the former on the roofs of the buildings.
At the same time the horde of howling redskins had to be held back.
Fierce fighting followed along every side of the stockade. Every man
strove and strained for dear life. The women worked hard, loading
spare rifles, of which there were fortunately a considerable number in
hand. Here and there an Indian gained the top of the palisade, when a
hand-to-hand struggle with tomahawks ensued. The din of musketry, the
cries of the combatants, the howling of dogs, and the bellowing of
cattle, created a veritable pandemonium.
Presently it was discovered that the roof of one of the cabins had
ignited and was burning fiercely. Kenton and Hardy were the first at
the spot.
“Give me a boost up, Hardy,” cried Kenton, standing with his face to
the building and arms uplifted. Instead, Hardy took a flying leap upon
his friend’s back and grasped the eaves of the cabin.
“Come off that!” shouted Kenton, trying to seize Hardy by the leg, but
the youngster wriggled out of reach and gained a footing on the roof.
“How’s that for impudence, Captain?” said Kenton to Boone, who was now
beside him. “Order him down, won’t you?”
“I’m all right, Dad! Hurry up the buckets!” shouted Hardy.
Boone loved the lad more than he had realized until he saw him in his
present extremely perilous position. For an instant Boone hesitated,
but only for an instant, before he answered the scout:
“Let him be, Kenton. He’s playing a man’s part and we haven’t the right
to baulk him. Not water!” he cried to the women, who now arrived with
several buckets of the fluid. “Not water! We shall need every drop
we have. We must make sand serve, if it will. Hurry with some empty
buckets.”
In the meanwhile, Hardy had sense enough not to expose himself
unnecessarily but lay prone along the edge of the roof. In a few
minutes half a dozen women were digging energetically in the sandy soil
of the square and filling the buckets, which Boone and Kenton handed up
to Hardy. The lad was now obliged to stand, and immediately his form,
clearly outlined in the lurid light, became the target for a hundred
rifles. A frontiersman would have brought him down in a minute, and
although the Indians were poor shots, it was a miracle that he lived
through the fusillade that they directed against him. At one time he
felt a sudden stinging sensation in his right thigh and looked down to
see if an ember had burned through his leggings. A little later, a hot
iron seemed to sear his cheek, and when he put his hand to the place it
came away covered with blood.
In hardly more than five minutes after the buckets began to come up
Hardy had the fire out, and, shouting a warning to those below, dropped
upon his stomach and slid off the roof into the arms of Kenton.
“That was well done, son,--very well done,” said Boone. “Now back to
your post. The Injuns will draw off at daybreak, but they may come
strong once again before that.”