with Reynold’s speech to Girty.  Of course, his exact words, as given by McClung, are incorrect; but Mr. L. C. Draper informs me that, in his youth, he knew several old men who had been in Bryan’s Station, and had themselves heard the speech.  If it were not for this I should reject it, for the British accounts do not even mention that Girty was along, and do not hint at the incident.  It was probably an unauthorized ruse of Girty’s.  The account of the decoy party of Indians is partially confirmed by the British letters.  Both Marshall and McClung get this siege and battle very much twisted in their narratives; they make so many mistakes that it is difficult to know what portion of their accounts to accept.  Nevertheless it would be a great mistake to neglect all, even of McClung’s statements.  Thus Boon and Levi Todd in their reports make no mention of McGarry’s conduct; and it might be supposed to be a traditional myth, but McClung’s account is unexpectedly corroborated by Arthur Campbell’s letter, hereafter to be quoted, which was written at the time.

Marshall is the authority for Netherland’s feat at the ford.  Boon’s description in the Filson narrative differs on several points from his earlier official letter, one or two grave errors being made; it is one of the incidents which shows how cautiously the Filson sketch must be used, though it is usually accepted as unquestionable authority.] Hardly were they within the fort, however, when some of the Indians found that they had been discovered, and the attack began so quickly that one or two of the men who had lingered in the corn-fields were killed, or else were cut off and fled to Lexington, while, at the same time, swift-footed runners were sent out to carry the alarm to the different stockades, and summon their riflemen to the rescue.

At first but a few Indians appeared, on the side of the Lexington road; they whooped and danced defiance to the fort, evidently inviting an attack.  Their purpose was to lure the defenders into sallying out after them, when their main body was to rush at the stockade from the other side.  But they did not succeed in deceiving the veteran Indian fighters who manned the heavy gates of the fort, stood behind the loopholed walls, or scanned the country round about from the high block-houses at the corners.  A dozen active young men were sent out on the Lexington road to carry on a mock skirmish with the decoy party, while the rest of the defenders gathered behind the wall on the opposite side.  As soon as a noisy but harmless skirmish had been begun by the sallying party, the main body of warriors burst out of the woods and rushed towards the western gate.  A single volley from the loopholes drove them back, while the sallying party returned at a run and entered the Lexington gate unharmed, laughing at the success of their counter-stratagem.

The Indians surrounded the fort, each crawling up as close as he could find shelter behind some stump, tree, or fence.  An irregular fire began, the whites, who were better covered, having slightly the advantage, but neither side suffering much.  This lasted for several hours, until early in the afternoon a party from Lexington suddenly appeared and tried to force its way into the fort.