tack. He
demonstrated, that in this way the advantage of position might be taken
from the enemy, and turned in their favor. He was decided and pressing,
that if it was determined to attack a force superior, before the arrival
of Colonel Logan, they ought at least to send out spies and explore the
country before they marched the main body over the river.

This wise counsel of Colonel Boone was perfectly accordant with the
views of Colonels Todd and Trigg, and of most of the persons consulted
on the occasion. But while they were deliberating, Major McGary,
patriotic, no doubt, in his intentions, but ardent, rash, hot-headed,
and indocile to military rule, guided his horse into the edge of the
river, raised the war-whoop in Kentucky style, and exclaimed, in a voice
of gay confidence, "All those that are not cowards will follow me; I
will show them where the Indians are!" Saying this, he spurred his horse
into the water. One and another, under the impulse of such an appeal to
their courage, dashed in after him. The council was thus broken up by
force. A part caught the rash spirit by sympathy. The rest, who were
disposed to listen to better counsels, were borne along, and their
suggestions drowned in the general clamor. All counsel and command were
at an end. And it is thus that many of the most important events of
history have been determined.

The whole party crossed the river, keeping straight forward in the
beaten buffalo road. Advanced a little, parties flanked out from the
main body, as the irregularity and unevenness of the ground would allow.
The whole body moved on in reckless precipitation and disorder, over a
surface covered with rocks, laid bare by the trampling of buffaloes, and
the washing of the rain of ages. Their course led them in front of the
high ridge which extends for some distance to the left of the road. They
were decoyed on in the direction of one of the ravines of which we have
spoken, by the reappearance of the party of Indians they had first seen.

The termination of this ridge sloped off in a declivity covered with a
thick forest of oaks. The ravines were thick set on their banks with
small timber, or encumbered with burnt wood, and the whole area before
them had been stripped bare of all herbage by the buffaloes that had
resorted to the Licks. Clumps of soil here and there on the bare rock
supported a few trees, which gave the whole of this spot of evil omen a
most singular appearance. The ad