feet.

Scarcely had he attained this hiding place ere the Indians like so many
fiends came rushing down to the river's bank. They searched the
cotton-wood thickets, and traversed the raft in all directions. They
frequently came so near the hiding place of Colter that he could see
them through the chinks. He was terribly afraid that they would set fire
to the raft. Night came on, and the Indians disappeared. Colter, in the
darkness, dived from under the raft, swam down the river to a
considerable distance, and then landed and traveled all night, following
the course of the stream.

"Although happy in having escaped from the Indians, his situation was
still dreadful. He was completely naked under a burning sun. The soles
of his feet were filled with the thorns of the prickly pear. He was
hungry and had no means of killing game, although he saw abundance
around him; and was at a great distance from the nearest settlement.
After some days of sore travel, during which he had no other sustenance
than the root known by naturalists under the name of _psoralea
esculenta_, he at length arrived in safety at Lisa Fort, on the Big
Horn, a branch of the Yellow Stone river."

CHAPTER VIII.

_Captivity and Flight._

Heroism of Thomas Higgins and of Mrs. Pursley.--Affairs at
Boonesborough.--Continued Alarms.--Need of Salt.--Its Manufacture.--Indian
Schemes.--Capture of Boone and twenty-seven men.--Dilemma of the British
at Detroit.--Blackfish adopts Colonel Boone.--Adoption Ceremony.--Indian
Designs.--Escape of Boone.--Attacks the Savages.--The Fort Threatened.

The following well authenticated account of the adventures of a ranger
is so graphically described in Brown's _History of Illinois_, that we
give it in the words of the writer:

"Thomas Higgins, a native Kentuckian, was, in the summer of 1814,
stationed in a block-house eight miles south of Greenville, in what is
now Bond County, Illinois. On the evening of the 30th of August, 1814, a
small party of Indians having been seen prowling about the station,
Lieutenant Journay, with all his men, twelve only in number, sallied
forth the next morning, just before daybreak, in pursuit of them. They
had not proceeded far on the border of the prairie, before they were in
an ambuscade of seventy or eighty savages. At the first fire, the
lieutenant and three of his men were killed. Six fled to the fort under
cover of the smoke, for the morning was sultry, and the air being dam