"'Let us take the canoe and go across the river,' said one of the girls, innocent-like.
"Well, they got into the boat and paddled across the running river to the opposite side. They reached shallow water, when a party of Indians, who had been watching them, cunning-like, stole out of the thick trees 'n' rushed down to the canoe 'n' drew it to the shore. The girls screamed, and their cries were heard at the fort.
"Night was falling. Three of the Indians took a little girl apiece, and, looking back to the fort in the sunset, uttered a shriek of defiance, such as would ha' made yer flesh creep, and disappeared in the timber.
"That night a party was got together at the fort to pursue the Indians and rescue the children.
"Well, near the close of the next day the party came upon these Indians, some forty miles from the fort. They approached the camp cautiously, coyote-like, 'n' saw that the girls were there.
"'Shoot carefully, now,' said the leader. 'Each man bring down an Indian, or the children will be killed before we can reach them.'
"They fired upon the Indians, picking out the three who were nearest the children. Not one of the Indians was hit, but the whole party was terribly frightened, leaped up, 'n' run like deer. The children were rescued unharmed 'n' taken back to the fort. You would think them was pretty hard times, wouldn't ye?
"There was one event that happened at the time about which I have heard the old folks tell, with staring eyes, and I will never forget it. The Indians came one night to attack a log-house in which were a man, his wife, and daughter, named Merrill. They did not wish to burn the cabin, but to enter it and make captives of the family; so they cut a hole in the door, with their hatchets, large enough to crawl through one at a time. They wounded Mr. Merrill outright.
"But Mrs. Merrill was a host in herself. Her only weapon was an axe, and there never was fought in Kentucky, or anywhere else in the world, I'm thinkin', such another battle as that.
"The leader of the Indians put his head through the hole in the door and began to crawl into the room, slowly—slowly—so—"