f prudence, however, by what had already befallen them,
they kept at such a cautious distance, as that their fire took little
effect. A project to gain the place, more wisely conceived, and
promising better success, was happily discovered by Colonel Boone. The
walls of the fort were distant sixty yards from the Kentucky river. The
bosom of the current was easily discernible by the people within. Boone
discovered in the morning that the stream near the shore was extremely
turbid. He immediately divined the cause.

The Indians had commenced a trench at the water level of the river
bank, mining upwards towards the station, and intending to reach the
interior by a passage under the wall. He took measures to render their
project ineffectual, by ordering a trench to be cut inside the fort,
across the line of their subterraneous passage. They were probably
apprised of the countermine that was digging within, by the quantity of
earth thrown over the wall. But, stimulated by the encouragement of
their French engineer, they continued to advance their mine towards the
wall, until, from the friability of the soil through which it passed, it
fell in, and all their labor was lost. With a perseverance that in a
good cause would have done them honor, in no wise discouraged by this
failure to intermit their exertions, they returned again to their fire
arms, and kept up a furious and incessant firing for some days, but
producing no more impression upon the station than before.

During the siege, which lasted eight days, they proposed frequent
parleys, requesting the surrender of the place, and professing to treat
the garrison with the utmost kindness. They were answered, that they
must deem the garrison to be still more brutally fools than themselves,
to expect that they would place any confidence in the proposals of
wretches who had already manifested such base and stupid treachery. They
were bidden to fire on, for that their waste of powder and lead gave the
garrison little uneasiness, and were assured that they could not hope
the surrender of the place, while there was a man left within it. On the
morning of the ninth day from the commencement of the siege, after
having, as usual, wreaked their disappointed fury upon the cattle and
swine, they decamped, and commenced a retreat.

No Indian expedition against the whites had been known to have had such
a disastrous issue for them. During the siege, their loss was estimated
by the garri