ly got
inside the house; yet three were killed or disabled, and they were
driven out by the despairing fury of the remaining whites, the women
fighting together with the men. Then the savages instantly fled, but
they had killed and scalped, or carried off, ten of the children. Be it
remembered that these instances are taken at random from among hundreds
of others, extending over a series of years longer than the average life
of a generation.

The Indians warred with the odds immeasurably in their favor. The Ohio
was the boundary between their remaining hunting-grounds and the lands
where the whites had settled. In Kentucky alone this frontier was
already seventy miles in length. [Footnote: Virginia State Papers, I.,
437. Letter of Col. John Floyd. The Kentuckians, he notices, trust
militia more than they do regulars.] Beyond the river stretched the
frowning forest, to the Indians a sure shield in battle, a secure haven
in disaster, an impenetrable mask from behind which to plan attack.

Nature of the Indian Forays.

Clark, from his post at the Falls, sent out spies and scouts along the
banks of the river, and patrolled its waters with his gun-boat; but it
was absolutely impossible to stop all the forays or to tell the point
likely to be next struck. A war party starting from the wigwam-towns
would move silently down through the woods, cross the Ohio at any point,
and stealthily and rapidly traverse the settlements, its presence
undiscovered until the deeds of murder and rapine were done, and its
track marked by charred cabins and the ghastly, mutilated bodies of men,
women, and children.

If themselves assailed, the warriors fought desperately and effectively.
They sometimes attacked bodies of troops, but always by ambush or
surprise; and they much preferred to pounce on unprepared and
unsuspecting surveyors, farmers, or wayfarers, or to creep up to
solitary, outlying cabins. They valued the scalps of women and children
as highly as those of men. Striking a sudden blow, where there was
hardly any possibility of loss to themselves, they instantly moved on to
the next settlement, repeating the process again and again. Tireless,
watchful, cautious, and rapid, they covered great distances, and their
stealth and the mystery of their coming and going added to the terror
produced by the horrible nature of their ravages. When pursued they
dextrously covered their trail, and started homewards across a hundred
leagues of