their leader had decided on
abandoning the assault. The reinforcements received, and the
probability that others were on the way, discouraged the
renegade, and Girty led his horde of savages away, first
doing all the harm in his power by burning the houses of the
settlement, and killing about three hundred cattle belonging
to the settlers.

The defence of Fort Henry was one of the most striking for
the courage displayed, and the success of the defenders, of
the many gallant contests with the Indian foe of that age of
stirring deeds. Aside from those killed in ambush, not a man
of the garrison had lost his life. Of the assailants, from
sixty to one hundred fell. Simon Girty and his Indians had
received a lesson they would not soon forget.

DANIEL BOONE, THE PIONEER OF KENTUCKY.

The region of Kentucky, that "dark and bloody ground" of
Indian warfare, lay long unknown to the whites. No Indians
even dwelt there, though it was a land of marvellous beauty
and wonderful fertility. For its forests and plains so
abounded with game that it was used by various tribes as a
hunting-ground, and here the savage warriors so often met in
hostile array, and waged such deadly war, that not the most
daring of them ventured to make it their home. And the name
which they gave it was destined to retain its sombre
significance for the whites, when they should invade the
perilous Kentuckian wilds, and build their habitations in
this land of dread.

In 1767 John Finley, a courageous Indian trader, pushed far
into its depths, and returned with thrilling stories of his
adventures and tempting descriptions of the beauty and
fertility of the land. These he told to Daniel Boone, an
adventure-loving Pennsylvanian, who had made his way to
North Carolina, and built himself a home in the virgin
forest at the head-waters of the Yadkin. Here, with his
wife, his rifle, and his growing family, he enjoyed his
frontier life with the greatest zest, until the increasing
numbers of new settlers and the alluring narrative of
Finley induced him to leave his home and seek again the
untrodden wilds.

On the 1st of May, 1769, Finley, Boone, and three others
struck boldly into the broad backbone of mountain-land which
lay between their old home and the new land of promise. They
set out on their dangerous journey amid the tears of their
families, who deemed that destruction awaited them, and
vainly besought them to abandon the enterprise. Forward,