Every
forest sound must have struck his ear, as a harbinger of the approaching
Indians.
No spirit but such an one as his, could have sustained the apprehension
and fatigue. No mind but one guided by the intuition of instinctive
sagacity, could have so enabled him to conceal his trail, and find his
way. But he evaded their pursuit. He discovered his way. He found in
roots, in barks, and berries, together with what a single shot of his
rifle afforded, wherewith to sustain the cravings of nature. Travelling
night and day, in an incredible short space of time he was in the arms
of his friends at Boonesborough, experiencing a reception, after such a
long and hopeless absence, as words would in vain attempt to portray.
CHAPTER X.
Six hundred Indians attack Boonesborough--Boone and Captain Smith go out
to treat with the enemy under a flag of truce, and are extricated from a
treacherous attempt to detain them as prisoners--Defence of the
fort--The Indians defeated--Boone goes to North Carolina to bring bark
his family.
It will naturally be supposed that foes less wary and intelligent, than
those from whom Boone had escaped, after they had abandoned the hope of
recapturing him, would calculate to find Boonesborough in readiness for
their reception.
Boonesborough, though the most populous and important station in
Kentucky, had been left by the abstraction of so many of the select
inhabitants in the captivity of the Blue Licks, by the absence of
Colonel Clarke in Illinois, and by the actual decay of the pickets,
almost defenceless.
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