ents, insisted upon the conference being held within sixty
yards of the fort. After the treaty was concluded the Indians proposed
to shake hands with the nine white treaty-makers, and promptly grappled
them. [Footnote: Apparently there were eighteen Indians on the treaty
ground, but these were probably, like the whites, unarmed.] However, the
borderers wrested themselves free, and fled to the fort under a heavy
fire, which wounded one of their number.

The Indians then attacked the fort, surrounding it on every side and
keeping up a constant fire at the loop-holes. The whites replied in
kind, but the combatants were so well covered that little damage was
done. At night the Indians pitched torches of cane and hickory bark
against the stockade, in the vain effort to set it on fire, [Footnote:
McAfee MSS.] and de Quindre tried to undermine the walls, starting from
the water mark. But Boon discovered the attempt, and sunk a trench as a
countermine. Then de Quindre gave up and retreated on August 20th, after
nine days' fighting, in which the whites had but two killed and four
wounded; nor was the loss of the Indians much heavier. [Footnote: De
Quindre reported to Hamilton that, though foiled, he had but two men
killed and three wounded. In Haldimand MSS., Hamilton to Haldimand,
October 15, 1778. Often, however, these partisan leaders merely reported
the loss in their own particular party of savages, taking no account of
the losses in the other bands that had joined them--as the Miamis joined
the Shawnees in this instance. But it is certain that Boon (or Filson,
who really wrote the Narrative) greatly exaggerated the facts in stating
that thirty-seven Indians were killed, and that the settlers picked up
125 pounds' weight of bullets which had been fired into the fort.]

This was the last siege of Boonsborough. Had de Quindre succeeded he
might very probably have swept the whites from Kentucky; but he failed,
and Boon's successful resistance, taken together with the outcome of
Clark's operations at the same time, ensured the permanency of the
American occupation. The old-settled region lying around the original
stations, or forts, was never afterwards seriously endangered by Indian
invasion.

Ferocious Individual Warfare.

The savages continued to annoy the border throughout the year 1778. The
extent of their ravages can be seen from the fact that, during the
summer months those around Detroit alone brought in to Hamil