ttle, sold the horses, and appropriated to their own use the
temporarily abandoned household goods and plantation tools. The
stealing of horses, which were needed for the cultivation of the
soil and useful for quickly carrying unknown thieves beyond the
reach of the owner and the law, became a common practice; and was
carried on by bands of outlaws living remote from one another and
acting in collusive concert.

Toward the end of July, 1755, when the Indian outrages upon the
New River settlements in Virginia had frightened away all the
families at the Town Fork in the Yadkin country, William Owen, a
man of Welsh stock, who had settled in the spring of 1752 in the
upper Yadkin near the Mulberry Fields, was suspected of having
robbed the storekeeper on the Meho. Not long afterward a band of
outlaws who plundered the exposed cabins in their owners'
absence, erected a rude fort in the mountain region in the rear
of the Yadkin settlements, where they stored their ill-gotten
plunder and made themselves secure from attack. Other members of
the band dwelt in the settlements, where they concealed their
robber friends by day and aided them by night in their nefarious
projects of theft and rapine.

The entire community was finally aroused by the bold depredations
of the outlaws; and the most worthy settlers of the Yadkin
country organized under the name of Regulators to break up the
outlaw band. When it was discovered that Owen, who was well known
at Bethabara, had allied himself with the highwaymen, one of the
justices summoned one hundred men; and seventy, who answered the
call, set forth on December 26, 1755, to seek out the outlaws and
to destroy their fortress. Emboldened by their success, the
latter upon one occasion had carried off a young girl of the
settlements. Daniel Boone placed himself at the head of one of
the parties, which included the young girl's father, to go to her
rescue; and they fortunately succeeded in effecting the release
of the frightened maiden. One of the robbers was apprehended and
brought to Salisbury, where he was thrown into prison for his
crimes. Meanwhile a large amount of plunder had been discovered
at the house of one Cornelius Howard; and the evidences of his
guilt so multiplied against him that he finally confessed his
connection with the outlaw band and agreed to point out their
fort in the mountains.

Daniel Boone and George Boone joined the party of seventy men,
sent out by the colon