py, generally as a volunteer, and without
compensation. When immigrant families were approaching the country, he
often went out to meet them and conduct them to the settlements. Such,
in general, were the paternal feelings of the pioneers of this young
colony.

The country was easily and amply supplied with meat from the chase, and
with vegetables from the fertility of the soil. The hardy settlers could
train themselves without difficulty to dispense with many things which
habit and long use in the old settlements had led them to consider as
necessaries. But to every form of civilized communities salt is an
indispensable article. The settlement of Boonesborough had been fixed
near a lick, with a view to the supply of that article. But the amount
was found to be very inadequate to the growing demand. The settlement
deemed it necessary to send out a company to select a place where the
whole country could be supplied with that article at a reasonable rate.

Captain Boone was deputed by the settlers to this service. He selected
thirty associates, and set out on the first of January, 1779, for the
Blue Licks, on Licking river, a well known stream emptying into the
Ohio, opposite where Cincinnati now stands. They arrived at the place,
and successfully commenced their operations. Boone, instead of taking a
part in the diurnal and uninterrupted labor, of evaporating the water,
performed the more congenial duty of hunting to keep the company in
provisions, while they labored. In this pursuit he had one day wandered
some distance from the bank of the river. Two Indians, armed with
muskets,--for they had now generally added these efficient weapons to
their tomahawks--came upon him. His first thought was to retreat. But he
discovered from their nimbleness, that this was impossible. His second
thought was resistance, and he slipped behind a tree to await their
coming within rifle shot. He then exposed himself so as to attract their
aim. The foremost levelled his musket. Boone, who could dodge the flash,
at the pulling of the trigger, dropped behind his tree unhurt. His next
object W&B to cause the fire of the Second musket to be thrown away in
the same manner. He again exposed a part of his person. The eager Indian
instantly fired, and Boone evaded the shot as before. Both the Indians,
having thrown away their fire, were eagerly striving, but with trembling
hands, to reload. Trepidation and too much haste retarded their object.
Boo