rson received a
letter from Boone telling of an attack by Indians, in which two of his
men had been killed, but "we stood on the ground and guarded our baggage
till the day and lost nothing." * These tidings, indicating that despite
treaties and sales, the savages were again on the warpath, might well
alarm Henderson's colonists. While they halted, some indecisive, others
frankly for retreat, there appeared a company of men making all haste
out of Kentucky because of Indian unrest. Six of these Henderson
persuaded to turn again and go in with him; but this addition hardly
offset the loss of those members of his party who thought it too
perilous to proceed. Henderson's own courage did not falter. He had
staked his all on this stupendous venture and for him it was forward
to wealth and glory or retreat into poverty and eclipse. Boone, in the
heart of the danger, was making the same stand. "If we give way to them
[the Indians] now," he wrote, "it will ever be the case."

* Bogart, "Daniel Boone and the Hunters of Kentucky." p. 121.

Signs of discord other than Indian opposition met Henderson as he
resolutely pushed on. His conversations with some of the fugitives from
Kentucky disclosed the first indications of the storm that was to blow
away the empire he was going in to found. He told them that the claims
they had staked in Kentucky would not hold good with the Transylvania
Company. Whereupon James McAfee, who was leading a group of returning
men, stated his opinion that the Transylvania Company's claim would not
hold good with Virginia. After the parley, three of McAfee's brothers
turned back and went with Henderson's party, but whether with intent
to join his colony or to make good their own claims is not apparent.
Benjamin Logan continued amicably with Henderson on the march but
did not recognize him as Lord Proprietor of Kentucky. He left the
Transylvania caravan shortly after entering the territory, branched off
in the direction of Harrodsburg, and founded St. Asaph's Station, in the
present Lincoln County, independently of Henderson though the site lay
within Henderson's purchase.

Notwithstanding delays and apprehensions, Henderson and his
colonists finally reached Boone's Fort, which Daniel and his "thirty
guns"--lacking two since the Indian encounter--had erected at the mouth
of Otter Creek.

An attractive buoyancy of temperament is revealed in Henderson's
description in his journal of a giant elm w