ly from the
neighboring stations, could it even have been sent for, without the most
imminent danger.' The enemy continued before the fort; there was no
ammunition nearer than the settlements at Holston, distant about two
hundred miles; and the garrison must surrender to horrors worse than
death, unless a supply of this indispensable article could be obtained.
Nor was it an easy task to pass through so wily an enemy or the danger
and difficulty much lessened, when even beyond the besiegers; owing to
the obscure and mountainous way, it was necessary to pass, through a foe
scattered in almost every direction. But Captain Logan was not a man to
falter where duty called, because encompassed with danger. With two
companions he left the fort in the night and with the sagacity of a
hunter, and the hardihood of a soldier, avoided the trodden way of
Cumberland Gap, which was most likely to be waylaid by the Indians, and
explored his passage over the Cumberland Mountain, where no man had ever
traveled before, through brush and cane, over rocks and precipices,
sufficient to have daunted the most hardy and fearless. In less than
ten days from his departure, Captain Logan, having obtained the desired
supply, and leaving it with directions to his men, how to conduct their
march, arrived alone and safe at his 'diminutive station,' which had
been almost reduced to despair. The escort with the ammunition,
observing the directions given it, arrived in safety, and the garrison
once more felt itself able to defend the fort and master its own
fortune." The siege was at last raised, but on the body of one of the
detachment were found the proclamations of the British governor of
Canada, offering protection to those who should embrace the cause of the
king, but threatening vengeance on all who refused their allegiance.
Thus it was brought home to the struggling pioneers of Kentucky, that
the British and the Indians were in league against them.

Men like Daniel Boone, James Harrod and Benjamin Logan, fighting,
bleeding, hunting game for the beleaguered garrisons, were the
precursors of George Rogers Clark. Clark possessed prescience. He knew
the British had determined on the extermination of the Kentucky
settlements, because these settlements thwarted the British plan of
preserving the west as a red man's wilderness. He had been in the fights
at Harrodstown, in 1777, and doubtless knew that the British partisans
at Detroit were paying money for