satisfactory to record that at least two of the three dastards met the fate they deserved.  The negro was killed in the water, and the other two captured, one of them being afterwards burned at the stake, while the other, it is said, was ultimately released.  Meanwhile Mrs. Jennings, assisted by the negro woman and Mrs. Peyton, actually succeeded in shoving the lightened boat off the rock, though their clothes were cut in many places by the bullets; and they rapidly drifted out of danger.  The poor little baby was killed in the hurry and confusion; but its mother, not eighteen hours from child-bed, in spite of the cold, wet, and exertion, kept in good health.  Sailing by night as well as day, they caught up with the rest of the flotilla before dawn on the second morning afterwards, the men being roused from their watch-fires by the cries of “help poor Jennings,” as the wretched and worn-out survivors in the disabled boat caught the first glimpse of the lights on shore.

Having successfully run the gauntlet of the Chickamauga banditti, the flotilla was not again molested by the Indians, save once when the boats that drifted near shore were fired on by a roving war party, and five men wounded.  They ran over the great Muscle Shoals in about three hours without accident, though the boats scraped on the bottom here and there.  The swift, broken water surged into high waves, and roared through the piles of driftwood that covered the points of the small islands, round which the currents ran in every direction; and those among the men who were unused to river-work were much relieved when they found themselves in safety.  One night, after the fires had been kindled, the tired travellers were alarmed by the barking of the dogs.  Fearing that Indians were near by, they hastily got into the boats and crossed to camp on the opposite shore.  In the morning two of them returned to pick up some things that had been left; they found that the alarm had been false, for the utensils that had been overlooked in the confusion were undisturbed, and a negro who had been left behind in the hurry was still sleeping quietly by the camp-fires.

On the 20th of the month they reached the Ohio.  Some of the boats then left for Natchez, and others for the Illinois country; while the remainder turned their prows up stream, to stem the rapid current—­a task for which they were but ill-suited.  The work was very hard, the provisions were nearly gone, and the crews were almost worn out by hunger and fatigue.  On the 24th they entered the mouth of the Cumberland.  The Adventure, the heaviest of all the craft, got much help from a small square-sail that was set in the bow.

Two days afterwards the hungry party killed some buffalo, and feasted on the lean meat, and the next day they shot a swan “which was very delicious,” as Donelson recorded.  Their meal was exhausted and they could make no more bread; but buffalo were plenty, and they hunted them steadily for their meat; and they also made what some of them called “Shawnee salad” from a kind of green herb that grew in the bottoms.