es of Indians who were scattered about watching all the
different settlements in Kentucky, and preparing to attack them. The
incident of the capture of the girls spread an alarm, and guards were
stationed to defend the hands who were engaged in cultivating the
ground.

Toward autumn the alarm of Indian hostilities, and the knowledge that
war was raging throughout the Colonies east of the mountains, excited
so much alarm, that some three hundred land speculators and other
adventurers deserted the Western country and returned to their old
homes.[29]

With the exception of the capture of the young girls mentioned
above, no incident is recorded as having disturbed the tranquility of
Boonesborough during the year 1776. An occasional immigrant added a new
member to its little society, who assisted in the labors of the hardy
colonists on the surrounding grounds. But its numbers received no
considerable increase till the following summer, when (25th July, 1777,)
a party of immigrants from North Carolina, consisting of forty-five men,
arrived in the country, and took up their first abode in the wilderness
at Boonesborough.

This was a fortunate circumstance for that station, and great cause of
rejoicing among all the settlements, for there were none of them that
had not been much molested by the Indians since the opening of spring,
and one or two of them had undergone long and regular Indian sieges.

Boonesborough had been surrounded by about one hundred of the enemy,
as early as the middle of April, 1777, and fiercely attacked. But the
Indians were so warmly received by the garrison on this occasion, that
they in a very little time withdrew, having killed one of the settlers,
and wounded four others. Their own loss could not be ascertained.

Increased to two hundred warriors, this party had returned to the attack
of Boonesborough on the fourth of July.[30] On the present occasion,
having sent detachments to alarm and annoy the neighboring settlements,
in order that no reinforcements should be sent to Boonesborough, the
Indians encamped about the place, with the object of attempting its
reduction by a regular siege. After a close and vigorous attack for two
days and nights, in which they succeeded in killing but one man and
wounding four others, the Indians, losing all hope of success, suddenly,
and with great clamor, raised the siege, and disappeared in the adjacent
forest. Their own loss was seven warriors, whose fall was