d commenced a
pursuit. The two flat boats rapidly floated beyond the illumination of
the fires into the region of midnight darkness. The timid Indians, well
acquainted with the white man's unerring aim, pursued cautiously, though
their hideous yells resounded along the shores.

Mr. Rowan ordered all on board to keep perfect silence, to conceal
themselves as much as possible, and ordered not a gun to be fired till
the Indians were so near that the powder of the gun would burn them,
thus rendering every shot absolutely certain. The Indians, with their
hideous yells, pursued in their canoes until within a hundred yards of
the boats. They then seemed simultaneously to have adopted the
conviction that the better part of valor was discretion. In the
darkness, they could not see the boatmen, who they had no doubt were
concealed behind bullet-proof bulwarks. Their birch canoes presented not
the slightest obstruction to the passage of a rifle ball. Knowing that
the flash of a gun from the boat would be certain death to some one of
their number, and that thus the boatmen, with the rapidity with which
they could load and fire, would destroy a large part of their company
before they could hope to capture the flat boats, they hesitated to
approach any nearer, but followed in the pursuit for nearly three miles
down the river, assailing the white men only with harmless yells.

The heroic Mrs. Rowan, as she saw the canoes approaching, supposing that
the savages would attempt to board the boats, crept quietly around in
the darkness, collected all the axes, and placed one by the side of each
man, leaning the handle against his knee. While performing this
significant act she uttered not a word, but returned to her own seat in
silence, retaining a sharp hatchet for herself.

With such determined spirits to assail, it was well for the savages
that they did not approach within arms-length of those whom they were
pursuing. They would certainly have met with a bloody reception.

The savages at length, despairing of success, relinquished the pursuit
and returned to their demoniac orgies around their camp-fires. It was
supposed that they had captured a boat which was descending the river
the day before, and that their extraordinary revelry was accompanied by
the roasting of their captives. A son of Mr. Rowan, but ten years of
age, who subsequently became one of the most distinguished men in
Kentucky, was present on this occasion. He frequentl