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the Clinch river is but one of the many magnificent ravines amid the gigantic ranges of the Alleghany mountains. Boone, speaking of these ridges which he so often had occasion to cross, says: "These mountains in the wilderness, as we pass from the old settlements in Virginia to Kentucky, are ranged in a south-west and north-east direction and are of great length and breadth and not far distant from each other. Over them nature hath formed passes that are less difficult than might be expected from a view of such huge piles. The aspect of these cliffs is so wild and horrid that it is impossible to behold them without terror. The spectator is apt to imagine that nature has formerly suffered some violent convulsion, and that these are the dismembered remains of the dreadful shock." One cannot but regret that no memorials are left of a wonderful journey, full of romantic interest and exciting adventure, which Boone at one time took to the Falls of the Ohio, to warn some surveyors of their danger. He reached them in safety, rescued them from certain death, and conducted them triumphantly back to the settlements. So long as the white men, with their rifles, could keep upon the open prairie, they could defend themselves from almost any number of Indians, who could only assail them with bows and arrows. But the moment they entered the forest, or any ravine among the hills, the little band was liable to hear the war-whoop of a thousand Indian braves in the ambush around, and to be assailed by a storm of arrows and javelins from unseen hands. A few days after Boone's arrival at the encampment near the Falls of the Ohio, and as the surveyors were breaking camp in preparation for their precipitate retreat, several of their number who had gone to a spring at a short distance from the camp, were suddenly attacked on the twentieth of July by a large party of Indians. One was instantly killed. The rest being nearly surrounded, fled as best they could in all directions. One man hotly pursued, rushed along an Indian trail till he reached the Ohio river. Here he chanced to find a bark canoe. He jumped into it and pushed out into the rapid stream till beyond the reach of the Indian arrows. The swift current bore him down the river, by curves and head-lands, till he was far beyond the encampment. [Illustration] To return against the strong flood, with the savages watching for him, seemed perilous, if not impossible. It is said that
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