“You ask,” answered he, “if we do not know you?  Know you!  Yes.  We know you too well.  Know Simon Girty!  Yes.  He is the renegado, cowardly villain, who loves to murder women and children, especially those of his own people.  Know Simon Girty!  Yes.  His father was a panther and his dam a wolf.  I have a worthless dog, that kills lambs.  Instead of shooting him, I have named him Simon Girty.  You expect reinforcements and cannon, do you?  Cowardly wretches, like you, that make war upon women and children, would not dare to touch them off, if you had them.  We expect reinforcements, too, and in numbers to give a short account of the murdering cowards that follow you.  Even if you could batter down our pickets, I, for one, hold your people in too much contempt to discharge rifles at them.  Should you see cause to enter our fort, I have been roasting a great number of hickory switches, with which we mean to whip your naked cut-throats out of the country.”

Simon, apparently little edified or flattered by this speech, wished him some of his hardest curses; and affecting to deplore the obstinacy and infatuation of the garrison, the ambassador of ruffled shirt and soldier coat withdrew.  The besieged gave a good account of every one, who came near enough to take a fair shot.  But before morning they decamped, marching direct to the Blue Licks, where they obtained very different success, and a most signal and bloody triumph.  We shall there again meet Daniel Boone, in his accustomed traits of heroism and magnanimity.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER VIII.

Boone being attacked by two Indians near the Blue Licks, kills them both—­Is afterwards taken prisoner and marched to Old Chillicothe—­Is adopted by the Indians—­Indian ceremonies.

We return to the subject of our memoir, from which the reader may imagine we have wandered too long.  He had already conducted the defence of Boonesborough, during two Indian sieges.  The general estimate of his activity, vigilance, courage, and enterprise, was constantly rising.  By the Indians he was regarded as the most formidable and intelligent captain of the Long-knife; and by the settlers and immigrants as a disinterested and heroic patriarch of the infant settlements.  He often supplied destitute families gratuitously with game.  He performed the duties of surveyor and spy, generally as a volunteer, and without compensation.  When immigrant families were approaching the country, he often went out to meet them and conduct them to the settlements.  Such, in general, were the paternal feelings of the pioneers of this young colony.

The country was easily and amply supplied with meat from the chase, and with vegetables from the fertility of the soil.  The hardy settlers could train themselves without difficulty to dispense with many things which habit and long use in the old settlements had led them to consider as necessaries.  But to every form of civilized communities salt is an indispensable article.  The settlement of Boonesborough had been fixed near a lick, with a view to the supply of that article.  But the amount was found to be very inadequate to the growing demand.  The settlement deemed it necessary to send out a company to select a place where the whole country could be supplied with that article at a reasonable rate.