y.

This incident, which has been taken as the ground-work of two or three
western fictions, and also had thrown around it all the warm coloring of
romance, by writers professing to deal only with the authentic, is thus
briefly related in the papers of Colonel John Floyd, as quoted by Mr.
Butler:

"On the 7th of July, 1776, the Indians took out of a canoe which was
in the river, within sight of Boonesborough, Miss Betsey Callaway, her
sister Frances, and a daughter of Daniel Boone. The last two were about
thirteen or fourteen years of age, and the other grown.

"The affair happened late in the afternoon, and the spoilers left the
canoe on the opposite side of the river from us, which prevented our
getting over for some time to pursue them. Next morning by daylight we
were on the track, but found they had totally prevented our following
them by walking some distance apart through the thickest cane they could
find. We observed their course, however, and on which side they had left
their sign, and traveled upward of thirty miles. We then imagined that
they would be less cautious in traveling, and made a turn in order to
cross their trace, and had gone but a few miles before we found their
tracks in a buffalo-path.

"Pursuing this for the distance of about ten miles, we overtook them
just as they were kindling a fire to cook. Our study had been more to
get the prisoners without giving their captors time to murder them after
they should discover us, than to kill the Indians.

"We discovered each other nearly at the same time. Four of our party
fired, and then all rushed upon them, which prevented their carrying
any thing away except one shot-gun without any ammunition. Mr. Boone and
myself had a pretty fair shot, just as they began to move off. I am well
convinced I shot one through; the one he shot dropped his gun, mine had
none."

[Illustration: CAPTURE OF BOONE'S DAUGHTER.]

"The place was very thick with cane; and being so much elated on
recovering the three little broken-hearted girls, prevented our making
any further search. We sent them off without moccasins, and not one of
them with so much as a knife or a tomahawk."

Although the people of the little colony of Boonesborough were not
aware of the fact at the time, the marauding Indians who thus captured
Miss Boone and the Misses Callaway, as they were amusing themselves by
paddling about the foot of the rock in the canoe, were one of the many
scouting parti