Daniel Boone: The Pioneer of Kentucky
"But let not the reader suppose that the pilgrim of the wilderness could
feast his imagination with the romantic beauties of nature, without any
drawback from conflicting passions. His situation did not afford him
much time for contemplation. He was an exile from the warm clothing and
plentiful mansions of society. His homely woodman's dress soon became
old and ragged. The cravings of hunger compelled him to sustain from day
to day the fatigues of the chase. Often he had to eat his venison,
bear's meat, or wild turkey without bread or salt. His situation was not
without its dangers. He did not know at what moment his foot might be
stung by a serpent, at what moment he might meet with the formidable
bear, or on what limb of a tree over his head the murderous panther
might be perched, in a squatting attitude, to drop down upon him and
tear him in pieces in a moment.
"Exiled from society and its comforts, the situation of the first
adventurers was perilous in the extreme. The bite of a serpent, a broken
limb, a wound of any kind, or a fit of sickness in the wilderness
without those accommodations which wounds and sickness require, was a
dreadful calamity. The bed of sickness, without medical aid, and above
all to be destitute of the kind attention of a mother, sister, wife, or
other female friends, was a situation which could not be anticipated by
the tenant of the forest, with other sentiments than those of the
deepest horror."[D]
[Footnote D: Doddridge's Notes.]
There are no narratives of more thrilling interest than those which
describe the perils and hair-breadth escapes which some of these bold
hunters encountered. Immediately after the purchase of Louisiana, an
expedition under Lewis and Clark was fitted out, under President
Jefferson's administration, to explore the vast, mysterious, undefined
realms which the government had purchased. In the month of May, 1804,
the expedition, in birch canoes, commenced the ascent of the Missouri
river.
They knew not whence its source, what its length or the number of its
tributaries, through what regions of fertility or barrenness it flowed,
or what the character of the nations who might inhabit its banks.
Paddling up the rapid current of this flood of waters in their frail
boats, the ascent was slow. By the latter part of October they had
reached a point fifteen hundred miles above the spot where the Missouri
enters the Mississippi. Here they spent the winter with some friendly
Indians called the Mandans.
Early in April, Lewis and Clark, with thirty men in their canoes,
resumed their voyage. Their course was nearly west. In May they reached
the mouth of the Yellow Stone river, and on the 13th of June came to the
_Great Falls of the Missouri_. Here they found a series of cataracts ten
miles in length. At one spot the river plunged over a precipice
eighty-seven feet in height. Carrying their canoes around these falls,
they re-embarked, and paddled through what they called "The Gates of
the Rocky Mountains." Here for six miles they were in a narrow channel
with perpendicular walls of rock, rising on both sides to the height of
twelve hundred feet. Thus these adventurers continued their voyage till
they reached the head of navigation, three thousand miles from the mouth
of the Missouri river. Passing through the mountains they launched their
canoes on streams flowing to the west, through which they entered the
Columbia river, reaching its mouth, through a thousand perils on the
15th of November. They were now more than four thousand miles distant
from the mouth of the Missouri. Such was the breadth of the estate we
had purchased of France.
Here they passed their second winter. In the early spring they commenced
their return. When they arrived at the Falls of the Missouri they
encountered a numerous band of Indians, very bold and daring, called the
Blackfoot. These savages were astonished beyond measure, at the effect
of the rifle which could emit thunder and lightning, and a deadly though
invisible bolt. Some of the boldest endeavored to wrench the rifles from
some of the Americans. Mr. Lewis found it necessary to shoot one of them
before they would desist. The rest fled in dismay, but burning with the
desire for revenge. The explorers continuing their voyage arrived at
Saint Louis on the 23rd of September, 1806, having been absent more
than two years, and having traveled more than nine thousand miles.
When the expedition, on its return, had reached the head waters of the
Missouri, two of these fearless men, Colter and Potts, decided to remain
in the wilderness to hunt beaver. Being well aware of the hostility of
the Blackfoot Indians, within whose regions they were, they set their
traps at night, and took them up in the first dawn of the day. Early one
morning, they were ascending a creek in a canoe, visiting their traps,
when they were alarmed by a great noise, like the trampling of animals.
They could see nothing, as the perpendicular banks of the river impeded
their view. Yet they hoped that the noise was occasioned simply by the
rush of a herd of buffaloes.
Their doubts were soon painfully removed. A band of six hundred
Blackfoot warriors appeared upon each side of the creek. Escape was
hopeless. The Indians beckoned to the hunters to come ashore. Colter
turned the head of the canoe towards the bank, and as soon as it touched
the land, a burly savage seized the rifle belonging to Potts, and
wrenched it from his hand. But Colter, who was a man of extraordinary
activity and strength, grasped the rifle, tore it from the hands of the
Indian, and handed it back to Potts. Colter stepped ashore and was a
captive. Potts, with apparent infatuation, but probably influenced by
deliberate thought, pushed again out into the stream. He knew that, as a
captive, death by horrible torture awaited him. He preferred to provoke
the savages to his instant destruction. An arrow was shot at him, which
pierced his body. He took deliberate aim at the Indian who threw it and
shot him dead upon the spot. Instantly a shower of arrows whizzed
through the air, and he fell a dead man in the bottom of the boat. The
earthly troubles of Potts were ended. But fearful were those upon which
Colter was about to enter.
The Indians, after some deliberation respecting the manner in which they
would put him to death, stripped him entirely naked, and one of the
chiefs led him out upon the prairie to the distance of three or four
hundred yards from the rest of the band who were grouped together.
Colter then perceived that he was to have the dreadful privilege of
running for his life;--he, entirely naked and unarmed, to be pursued by
six hundred fleet-footed Indians with arrows and javelins, and with
their feet and limbs protected from thorns and brambles by moccasins and
deerskin leggins.
"Save yourself if you can," said the chief in the Blackfoot language as
he set him loose. Colter sprung forward with almost supernatural speed.
Instantly the Indian's war-whoop burst from the lips of his six hundred
pursuers. They were upon a plain about six miles in breadth abounding
with the prickly pear. At the end of the plain there was Jefferson
river, a stream but a few rods wide. Every step Colter took, bounding
forward with almost the speed of an antelope, his naked feet were torn
by the thorns. The physical effort he made was so great that the blood
gushed from his nostrils, and flowed profusely down over his chest. He
had half crossed the plain before he ventured to glance over his
shoulder upon his pursuers, who, with hideous yells, like baying
bloodhounds, seemed close upon his heels. Much to his relief he
perceived that he had greatly distanced most of the Indians, though one
stout savage, with a javelin in his hand, was within a hundred yards of
him.
Hope reanimated him. Regardless of lacerated feet and blood, he pressed
forward with renovated vigor until he arrived within about a mile of the
river, when he found that his pursuer was gaining rapidly upon him. He
could hear his breathing and the sound of his footsteps, and expected
every moment to feel the sharp javelin piercing his back.
In his desperation he suddenly stopped, turned round and stretching out
both of his arms, rushed, in his utter defencelessness, upon the armed
warrior. The savage, startled by this unexpected movement and by the
bloody appearance of his victim, stumbled and fell, breaking his spear
as he attempted to throw it. Colter instantly snatched up the pointed
part, and pinned his foe, quivering with convulsions to the earth.
Again he plunged forward on the race for life. The Indians, as they came
up, stopped for a moment around the body of their slain comrade, and
then, with hideous yells, resumed the pursuit. The stream was fringed
with a dense growth of cotton-wood trees. Colter rushed through them,
thus concealed from observation, and seeing near by a large raft of
drift timber, he plunged into the water, dived under the raft and
fortunately succeeded in getting his head above the water between the
logs, where smaller wood covered him to the depth of several feet.
Scarcely had he attained this hiding place ere the Indians like so many
fiends came rushing down to the river's bank. They searched the
cotton-wood thickets, and traversed the raft in all directions. They
frequently came so near the hiding place of Colter that he could see
them through the chinks. He was terribly afraid that they would set fire
to the raft. Night came on, and the Indians disappeared. Colter, in the
darkness, dived from under the raft, swam down the river to a
considerable distance, and then landed and traveled all night, following
the course of the stream.
"Although happy in having escaped from the Indians, his situation was
still dreadful. He was completely naked under a burning sun. The soles
of his feet were filled with the thorns of the prickly pear. He was
hungry and had no means of killing game, although he saw abundance
around him; and was at a great distance from the nearest settlement.
After some days of sore travel, during which he had no other sustenance
than the root known by naturalists under the name of _psoralea
esculenta_, he at length arrived in safety at Lisa Fort, on the Big
Horn, a branch of the Yellow Stone river."
CHAPTER VIII.
_Captivity and Flight._
Heroism of Thomas Higgins and of Mrs. Pursley.--Affairs at
Boonesborough.--Continued Alarms.--Need of Salt.--Its Manufacture.--Indian
Schemes.--Capture of Boone and twenty-seven men.--Dilemma of the British
at Detroit.--Blackfish adopts Colonel Boone.--Adoption Ceremony.--Indian
Designs.--Escape of Boone.--Attacks the Savages.--The Fort Threatened.
The following well authenticated account of the adventures of a ranger
is so graphically described in Brown's _History of Illinois_, that we
give it in the words of the writer:
"Thomas Higgins, a native Kentuckian, was, in the summer of 1814,
stationed in a block-house eight miles south of Greenville, in what is
now Bond County, Illinois. On the evening of the 30th of August, 1814, a
small party of Indians having been seen prowling about the station,
Lieutenant Journay, with all his men, twelve only in number, sallied
forth the next morning, just before daybreak, in pursuit of them. They
had not proceeded far on the border of the prairie, before they were in
an ambuscade of seventy or eighty savages. At the first fire, the
lieutenant and three of his men were killed. Six fled to the fort under
cover of the smoke, for the morning was sultry, and the air being damp,
the smoke from the guns hung like a cloud over the scene. But Higgins
remained behind to have 'one more pull at the enemy,' and to avenge the
death of his companions.