, and
drifted down the Ohio. On May 26th they met two Delawares in a canoe
flying a red flag; they had been sent down the river with a pass from
the commandant at Fort Pitt to gather their hunters and get them home,
in view of the threatened hostilities between the Shawnees and
Virginians.[45] The actions of the two Indians were so suspicious, and
the news they brought was so alarming, that some of Floyd's companions
became greatly alarmed, and wished to go straight on down the
Mississippi; but Floyd swore that he would finish his work unless
actually forced off. Three days afterwards they reached the Falls.

Here Floyd spent a fortnight, making surveys in every direction, and
then started off to explore the land between the Salt River and the
Kentucky. Like the others, he carried his own pack, which consisted of
little but his blanket and his instruments. He sometimes had
difficulties with his men; one of them refused to carry the chain one
day, and went off to hunt, got lost, and was not found for thirty-six
hours. Another time it was noticed that two of the hunters had become
sullen, and seemed anxious to leave camp. The following morning, while
on the march, the party killed an elk and halted for breakfast; but the
two hunters walked on, and, says the journal, "we never saw them more";
but whether they got back to the settlements or perished in the
wilderness, none could tell.

The party suffered much hardship. Floyd fell sick, and for three days
could not travel. They gave him an "Indian sweat," probably building
just such a little sweat-house as the Indians use to this day. Others of
their number at different times fell ill; and they were ever on the
watch for Indians. In the vast forests, every sign of a human being was
the sign of a probable enemy. Once they heard a gun, and another time a
sound as of a man calling to another; and on each occasion they
redoubled their caution, keeping guard as they rested, and at night
extinguishing their camp-fire and sleeping a mile or two from it.

They built a bark canoe in which to cross the Kentucky, and on the 1st
of July they met another party of surveyors on the banks of that
stream.[46] Two or three days afterwards, Floyd and three companions
left the others, agreeing to meet them on August 1st, at a cabin built
by a man named Harwood, on the south side of the Kentucky, a few miles
from the mouth of the Elkhorn. For three weeks they surveyed and hunted,
enchanted wi