flight of five
days.

On his arrival at Boonesborough, he was welcomed as one risen from the
grave. Much to his disappointment he found that his wife with his
children, despairing of ever seeing him again, had left the fort and
returned to the house of her father, in North Carolina. She supposed
that the Indians had killed him. "Oppressed," writes Boone, "with the
distresses of the country and bereaved of me, her only happiness, she
had undertaken her long and perilous journey through the wilderness." It
is gratifying to record that she reached her friends in safety.

Boone found the fort as he had apprehended, in a bad state of defence.
His presence, his military skill, and the intelligence he brought,
immediately inspired every man to the intensest exertion. The gates were
strengthened, new bastions were formed, and provisions were laid in, to
stand a siege. Everything was done which could be done to repel an
assault from they knew not how many savages, aided by British leaders,
for the band from old Chilicothe, was to be joined by warriors from
several other tribes. In ten days, Boonesborough was ready for the
onset. These arduous labors being completed, Boone heroically resolved
to strike consternation into the Indians, by showing them that he was
prepared for aggressive as well as defensive warfare, and that they must
leave behind them warriors for the protection of their own villages.

Selecting a small party of but nineteen men, about the first of August
he emerged from Boonesborough, marched boldly to the Ohio, crossed the
river, entered the valley of the Scioto, and was within four miles of an
Indian town, Paint Creek, which he intended to destroy, when he chanced
to encounter a band of thirty savages painted, thoroughly armed and on
the war path, to join the band advancing from Old Chilicothe. The
Indians were attacked with such vehemence by Boone, that they fled in
consternation, leaving behind them three horses and all their baggage.
The savages also lost one killed and two wounded, while they inflicted
no loss whatever upon the white men.

Boone sent forward some swift runners as spies, and they speedily
returned with the report that the Indians in a panic had entirely
abandoned Paint Creek. Aware that the warriors would rush to join the
four hundred and fifty from Old Chilicothe, and that they might cut off
his retreat, or reach Boonesborough before his return, he immediately
commenced a rapid movement