bend in the stream, where there was a large and open space, with prairie
grass very high. A well trampled buffalo track led through this grass,
which was almost like a forest of reeds. Along this "street" the Indians
had retreated. The scouts who had been sent forward to explore, returned
with the report that there were no signs of Indians. And yet, four
hundred savages had so adroitly concealed themselves, that their line
really extended from bank to bank of the river, where it bent like a
horseshoe before them. The combined cunning of the Indian, and the
intelligence of their white leaders, was now fatally enlisted for the
destruction of the settlers. A hundred and eighty men were to be caught
in a trap, with five hundred demons prepared to shoot them down.

As soon as Colonel Todd's party passed the neck of this bend, the
Indians closed in behind them, rose from their concealment, and with
terrific yells opened upon them a still more terrific fire. The pioneers
fought with the courage of desperation. At the first discharge, nearly
one third of Colonel Todd's little party fell dead or wounded. Struck
fatally by several bullets, Colonel Todd himself fell from his horse
drenched with blood. While a portion of the Indians kept up the fire,
others, with hideous yells sprang forward with tomahawk and scalping
knife, completing their fiendlike work. It was a scene of awful
confusion and dismay. The survivors fighting every step of the way,
retreated towards the river, for there was no escape back through their
thronging foes. Colonel Boone's two sons fought by the side of their
father. Samuel, the younger, struck by a bullet, was severely but not
mortally wounded. Israel, his second son, fell dead. The unhappy father,
took his dead boy upon his shoulders to save him from the scalping
knife. As he tottered beneath the bleeding body, an Indian of herculean
stature with uplifted tomahawk rushed upon him. Colonel Boone dropped
the body of his son, shot the Indian through the heart, and seeing the
savages rushing upon him from all directions, fled, leaving the corpse
of his boy to its fate.

Being intimately acquainted with the ground, he plunged into a ravine,
baffling several parties who pursued him, swam across the river, and
entering the forest succeeded in escaping from his foes, and at length
safely by a circuitous route returned to Bryant's Station. In the
meantime the scene of tumult and slaughter was awful beyond all
d