r Indians took him to their
main party. There were one hundred and two Shawnees, altogether, and
two white allies, marching down under Chiefs Munseka and Black Fish to
attack Boonesborough and avenge the murder, last fall, of the Chief
Corn-stalk party when prisoners in the American fort at Point Pleasant
on the West Virginia side of the Ohio River.[1]

The capture of Captain Daniel Boone was hailed with great joy. The
Shawnees scarcely had expected to achieve this feat. Once before he
had been taken, but had escaped while his guards were drunk. He was a
hard man to hold; now they were determined to keep him.

They seemed to know that he and his men had gone out from
Boonesborough, salt-making. That was why they had chosen this time for
the attack. Now they demanded that he tell his men at the licks to
surrender likewise.

"We will surprise them, too, and kill them. Or let them surrender and
they shall not be harmed," said Black Fish.

Daniel Boone had been thinking rapidly. He understood Indian nature.
The Shawnees were treating him kindly--they respected him as a great
chief who had always met them fairly. He had killed a number of their
warriors, but only when fighting man to man against odds. He trusted
the word of Black Fish.

Burdened with prisoners got at a bargain, so to speak, the Shawnees
might prefer to go home rather than attack Boonesborough. But if his
men fought and killed, they likely enough would be cut to pieces; the
Shawnees, blood maddened, would attack Boonesborough--and woe to the
women and children!

"I will tell them to surrender," he promised. "I have your word."

"That is good," Black Fish answered. "They shall not be harmed."

In the morning they all marched the few miles to the Blue Licks camp.
Covered by the Indians' tomahawks and guns, he stood forth, at the edge
of the snowy timber, and hallooed. He stated just what had happened,
and what was likely to happen now if they resisted.

[Illustration: At the siege of Boonesborough. From an Old Print]

The fact that he himself had surrendered scored heavily. He was not a
man to give up without good cause.

"Boone is prisoner!"

The sight rather took the tuck out of the salt-makers. They knew him
for a man of sound common-sense; his word, in Indian matters, was law;
and they surrendered, also. But it was a bitter pill.

However, Chief Black Fish proved true. Two of the camp hunters, Thomas
Brooks and Flanders Ca