get the prisoners without giving their captors time to murder them after
they should discover us, than to kill the Indians.

"We discovered each other nearly at the same time. Four of our party
fired, and then all rushed upon them, which prevented their carrying
any thing away except one shot-gun without any ammunition. Mr. Boone and
myself had a pretty fair shot, just as they began to move off. I am well
convinced I shot one through; the one he shot dropped his gun, mine had
none."

[Illustration: CAPTURE OF BOONE'S DAUGHTER.]

"The place was very thick with cane; and being so much elated on
recovering the three little broken-hearted girls, prevented our making
any further search. We sent them off without moccasins, and not one of
them with so much as a knife or a tomahawk."

Although the people of the little colony of Boonesborough were not
aware of the fact at the time, the marauding Indians who thus captured
Miss Boone and the Misses Callaway, as they were amusing themselves by
paddling about the foot of the rock in the canoe, were one of the many
scouting parties of Indians who were scattered about watching all the
different settlements in Kentucky, and preparing to attack them. The
incident of the capture of the girls spread an alarm, and guards were
stationed to defend the hands who were engaged in cultivating the
ground.

Toward autumn the alarm of Indian hostilities, and the knowledge that
war was raging throughout the Colonies east of the mountains, excited
so much alarm, that some three hundred land speculators and other