foe had ever excited their fears. An accident occurred which sent
a tremor of dismay through the whole colony, and which we will describe
as related to the intelligent historian, Peck, from the lips of one of
the parties, who experienced all the terrors of the scene:

"On the fourteenth of July, 1776, Betsey Calloway, her sister Frances,
and Jemima Boone, a daughter of Daniel Boone, the two last about
fourteen years of age, carelessly crossed the river opposite
Boonesborough in a canoe, at a late hour in the afternoon. The trees
and shrubs on the opposite bank were thick, and came down to the water's
edge. The girls, unconscious of danger, were playing and splashing the
water with their paddles, until the canoe floating with the current,
drifted near the shore. Five stout Indians lay there concealed, one of
whom, noiseless and stealthy as the serpent, crawled down the bank until
he reached the rope that hung from the bow, turned its course up the
stream, and in a direction to be hidden from the view of the fort. The
loud shrieks of the captured girls were heard, but too late for their
rescue.

"The canoe, their only means of crossing, was on the opposite shore, and
none dared to risk the chance of swimming the river, under the
impression that a large body of savages was concealed in the woods.
Boone and Calloway were both absent, and night came on before
arrangements could be made for their pursuit. Next morning by daylight
we were on the track, and found they had prevented our following them by
walking some distance apart through the thickest canes they could find.
We observed their course, and on which side they had left their sign and
traveled upwards of thirty miles. We then imagined they would be less
cautious in traveling, and made a turn in order to cross their trace,
and had gone but a few miles when we found their tracks in a buffalo
path. We pursued and overtook them on going about ten miles, as they
were kindling a fire to cook.

[Illustration]

"Our study had been more to get the prisoners without giving the Indians
time to murder them, after they discovered us, than to kill them. We
discovered each other nearly at the same time. Four of us fired, and all
of us rushed on them, which prevented them from carrying away anything,
except one shot-gun without ammunition. Mr. Boone and myself had a
pretty fair shoot, just as they began to move off. I am well convinced I
shot one through, and the one he shot dro