Marching thus from point to point, Clark's forces took all the forts in the Illinois country; but as he had few men, he could not send fair-sized garrisons to all. Some time after Vin-cennes´ submitted, a large British force appeared to capture it, and loudly commanded the American officer there to surrender. After some parley, this man consented to do so, provided he and his garrison were allowed to march out with all the honors of war.
The British officer granted this request; but imagine his surprise and anger when he saw the officer march out, followed by only one man! These two composed the whole garrison, and could boast that they had held the fort of Vincennes against a force of eight hundred men. When Clark heard what had happened, he marched over with a large force and recaptured the fort.
LXXV. BOONE IN KENTUCKY.
As you have heard, the land south of the Ohio suffered much from Indian raids. This part of the country had already been the scene of so many Indian battles that it well deserved the name of Kentucky, or the "dark and bloody ground." Six years before the Revolutionary War began, Daniel Boone, a hardy pioneer, first crossed the Alleghany Mountains and came into this beautiful region. Seeing the tall forest trees and plentiful game, he thought it would be a good place to live in.
After wandering about it for months, and escaping from the hands of some Indians who had taken him captive, Boone made up his mind to settle there. He therefore went back to North Carolina for his wife and daughter, and, with his brother and several other pioneers, returned to Kentucky where he formed a settlement called Boones´bor-o (1775). Like all pioneer villages, this was merely a collection of a few log huts, surrounded by a tall palisade to serve as a rampart against Indian attacks.
Boone's daughter and two younger girls, little suspecting danger, once went out in a canoe to pick flowers along the banks of a stream. Suddenly several Indians sprang out of a thicket, seized them, and bore them off into the woods. While the younger girls cried helplessly, Boone's daughter, seeing it was of no use to struggle, quietly followed her captor. But she took care to leave the print of her shoe here and there where the soil was damp, to break twigs of bushes, and to fasten shreds of her dress to the briers along the way, so that her tracks could be followed.
As soon as the girls' capture was discovered, Boone and six other men set out in pursuit. Thanks to the girl's clever way of marking her passage, they soon came to where the savages were camping in the woods. Creeping up stealthily, the white men noiselessly got between the children and the Indians, for they knew the latter would kill and scalp their captives at the first alarm. The Indians, suddenly finding themselves in danger, hastily fled, leaving captives and weapons behind them.
In the third year of the Revolutionary War, some Indians, hired by the British to make war along the frontier, came to attack Boonesboro. But the place was so gallantly defended by the settlers that they could not get in. They vainly directed a steady fire against the palisades for some time, and then withdrew to a short distance to rest.