AN INCIDENT IN FRONTIER LIFE

A daughter of Boone’s, and a Miss Galloway, were amusing themselves in the immediate neighborhood of the fort, when a party of Indians rushed from a canebrake, and, intercepting their return, took them prisoners.  The screams of the terrified girls quickly alarmed the family.  Boone hastily collected a party of eight men, and pursued the enemy.  So much time, however, had been lost, that the Indians had got several miles the start of them.  The pursuit was urged through the night with great keenness by woodsmen capable of following a trail at all times.  On the following day they came up with the fugitives, and fell upon them so suddenly and so furiously as to allow them no leisure for tomahawking their prisoners.  The girls were rescued, without having sustained any other injury than excessive fright and fatigue.  The Indians lost two men, while Boone’s party was uninjured.

[Illustration:  THE PURSUIT]

FEMALE INTREPIDITY.

In 1782, Wheeling was besieged by a large number of British and Indians.  So sudden and unexpected was the attack, that no time was afforded for preparation.  The fort, at the period of the assault was commanded by Colonel Silas Zane.  The senior officer, Colonel Ebenezer Zane, was in a blockhouse some fifty or a hundred yards outside of the wall.  The enemy made several desperate assaults to break into the fort, but at every onset they were driven back.  The ammunition for the defence of the fort was deposited in the blockhouse, and there had not been time to remove it before the Indians approached.

On the afternoon of the second day of the siege, the powder of the fort was nearly exhausted, and no alternative remained, but for some one to pass through the enemy’s fire to the blockhouse, in order to obtain a supply.  When Silas Zane made the proposition to the men, asking if any one would undertake the hazardous enterprise, all at first were silent.  After looking at one another for some time, a young man stepped forward, and said he would undertake the errand.  Immediately, half a dozen offered their services in the dangerous enterprise.

While they were disputing as to who should go, Elizabeth, sister of the Zanes, came forward and declared, that she would go for the powder.  Her brother thought she would flinch from the enterprise, but he was mistaken.  She had the intrepidity to dare, and the fortitude to accomplish the undertaking.  Her brother then tried to dissuade her from her heroic purpose, by saying that a man would be more fleet, and consequently would run less risk of losing his life.

She replied, that they had not a man to spare from the defence of the fort, and that if she should fall, she would scarcely be missed.  Then divesting herself of such articles of clothing as would impede the celerity of her flight, she prepared to start.