ere not taken by surprise. From the rifles of the garrison
bullets were poured back. Boone easily shook off his
assailant, and his companions did the same. Back to the fort
they fled, bullets pattering after them, while the keen
marksmen of the fort sent back their sharp response. In a
few seconds the imperilled nine were behind the heavy gates,
only one of their number, Boone's brother, being wounded.
They had escaped a peril from which, for the moment, rescue
seemed hopeless.

Baffled in their treachery, the assailants now made a fierce
assault on the fort, upon which they kept up an incessant
fire for nine days and nights, giving the beleaguered
garrison scarcely a moment for rest. Hidden behind rocks and
trees, they poured in their bullets in a manner far more
brisk than effectual. The garrison but feebly responded to
this incessant fusillade, feeling it necessary to husband
their ammunition. But, unlike the fire of their foes, every
shot of theirs told.

During this interval the assailants began to undermine the
fort, beginning their tunnel at the river-bank. But the clay
they threw out discolored the water and revealed their
project, and the garrison at once began to countermine, by
cutting a trench across the line of their projected passage.
The enemy, in their turn, discovered this and gave up the
attempt. Another of their efforts was to set fire to the
fort by means of flaming arrows. This proved temporarily
successful, the dry timbers of the roof bursting into
flames. But one of the young men of the fort daringly sprang
upon the roof, extinguished the fire, and returned unharmed,
although bullets had fallen like hailstones around him.

At length, thoroughly discouraged, the enemy raised the
siege and departed, having succeeded only in killing two and
wounding four of the garrison, while their dead numbered
thirty-seven, and their wounded a large number. One of these
dead was a negro, who had deserted from the fort and joined
the Indians, and whom Boone brought down with a bullet from
the remarkable distance, for the rifles of that day, of five
hundred and twenty-five feet. After the enemy had gone there
were "picked up," says Boone, "one hundred and twenty-five
pounds' weight of bullets, besides what stuck in the logs of
the fort, which certainly is a great proof of their
industry," whatever may be said of their marksmanship.

The remainder of Daniel Boone's life we can give but in
outline. After the