vering our counter mine by the clay we threw out
of the fort, desisted from that stratagem. Experience now fully
convincing them that neither their power nor their policy could effect
their purpose, on the twentieth of August they raised the siege and
departed.

"During this siege, which threatened death in every form, we had two men
killed and four wounded, besides a number of cattle. We killed of the
enemy thirty-seven and wounded a great number. After they were gone we
picked up one hundred and twenty-five pounds weight of bullets, besides
what stuck in the logs of our fort, which certainly is a great proof of
their industry."

It is said that during this siege, one of the negroes, probably a slave,
deserted from the fort with one of their best rifles, and joined the
Indians. Concealing himself in a tree, where unseen he could take
deliberate aim, he became one of the most successful of the assailants.
But the eagle eye of Boone detected him, and though, as was afterwards
ascertained by actual measurement, the tree was five hundred and
twenty-five feet distant from the fort, Boone took deliberate aim,
fired, and the man was seen to drop heavily from his covert to the
ground. The bullet from Boone's rifle had pierced his brain.

At one time the Indians had succeeded in setting fire to the fort, by
throwing flaming combustibles upon it, attached to their arrows. One of
the young men extinguished the flames, exposing himself to the
concentrated and deadly fire of the assailants in doing so. Though the
bullets fell like hailstones around him, the brave fellow escaped
unscathed.

This repulse quite disheartened the Indians. Henceforth they regarded
Boonesborough as a Gibraltar; impregnable to any force which they could
bring against it. They never assailed it again. Though Boonesborough is
now but a small village in Kentucky, it has a history which will render
it forever memorable in the annals of heroism.

It will be remembered that Boone's family, supposing him to have
perished by the hands of the Indians, had returned to the home of Mrs.
Boone's father in North Carolina. Colonel Boone, anxious to rejoin his
wife and children, and feeling that Boonesborough was safe from any
immediate attack by the Indians, soon after the dispersion of the
savages entered again upon the long journey through the wilderness, to
find his friends east of the mountains. In the autumn of 1778, Colonel
Boone again found himself, after al