Ten days after this another party of immigrants, led by a man named Moore, were attacked on the Wilderness Road and nine persons killed.  Whitley raised thirty of his horse-riflemen, and, guessing from the movements of the Indians that they were following the war trace northward, he marched with all speed to reach it at some point ahead of them, and succeeded.  Finding they had not passed he turned and went south, and in a thick canebrake met his foes face to face.  The whites were spread out in line, while the Indians, twenty in number, came on in single file, all on horseback.  The cane was so dense that the two parties were not ten steps apart when they saw one another.  At the first fire the Indians, taken utterly unaware, broke and fled, leaving eight of their number dead; and the victors also took twenty-eight horses. [Footnote:  Draper MSS.  Whitley’s MSS.  Narrative, apparently dictated some time after the events described.  It differs somewhat from the printed account in Collins.]

    Death of Black Wolf and Col.  Christian

In the following spring another noted Indian fighter, less lucky than Whitley, was killed while leading one of these scouting parties.  Early in 1786, the Indians began to commit and Col. numerous depredations in Kentucky, and the alarm and anger of the inhabitants became great. [Footnote:  Draper MSS.  Clark Papers, passim for 1786.  Wm. Finney to G. R. Clark, March 24 and 26, 1786.  Also Wm. Croghan to G. R. Clark, Nov. 3, and Nov. 16, 1785.] In April, a large party of savages under a chief named Black Wolf, made a raid along Beargrass.  Col.  William Christian, a very gallant and honorable man, was in command of the neighboring militia.  At once, as was his wont, he raised a band of twenty men, and followed the plunderers across the Ohio.  Riding well in advance of his followers, with but three men in company with him, he overtook the three rearmost Indians, among whom was Black Wolf.  The struggle was momentary but bloody.  All three Indians were killed, but Colonel Christian and one of his captains were also slain. [Footnote:  State Department MSS.  Papers Continental Congress.  Sam McDowell to Governor of Virginia, April 18, 1786.  John May to Do., April 19, 1786.  Clark MSS.  Bradford’s Notes on Kentucky.  John Clark to Johnathan Clark, April 21, 1786.]

    Anger of the Kentuckians.

The Kentuckians were by this time thoroughly roused, and were bent on making a retaliatory expedition in force.  They felt that the efforts made by Congress to preserve peace by treaties, at which the Indians were loaded with presents, merely resulted in making them think that the whites were afraid of them, and that if they wished gifts all they had to do was to go to war. [Footnote:  Draper MSS.  Jon.  Clark Papers.  John Clark to Johnathan Clark, March 29, 1786.  Also, G. R. Clark to J. Clark, April 20, 1788.] The only effective way to deal with the Indians was to strike them in their own country,