The firing had aroused the neighborhood; and soon after the retreat of the Indians, Major McGary appeared with forty men.  It was determined to pursue the Indians, as they could not have advanced far.  This purpose was immediately carried into execution.  The Indians were overtaken and completely routed.  The station suffered inconvenience from the loss of their domestic animals, which were all killed by the Indians, previous to their retreat.  One white man was killed and another died of his wounds in a few days.  This was the last attack upon this station by the Indians, although it remained for some years a frontier post.

We might easily swell these annals to volumes, by entering into details of the attack of Kincheloe’s station, and its defence by Colonel Floyd; the exploits of Thomas Randolph; the captivity of Mrs. Bland and Peake; and the long catalogue of recorded narratives of murders, burnings, assaults, heroic defences, escapes, and the various incidents of Indian warfare upon the incipient settlements.  While their barbarity and horror chill the blood, they show us what sort of men the first settlers of the country were, and what scenes they had to witness, and what events to meet, before they prepared for us our present peace and abundance.  The danger and apprehension of their condition must have been such, that we cannot well imagine how they could proceed to the operations of building and fencing, with sufficient composure and quietness of spirit, to complete the slow and laborious preliminaries of founding such establishments, as they have transmitted to their children.  Men they must have been, who could go firmly and cheerfully to the common occupations of agriculture, with their lives in their hands, and under the constant expectation of being greeted from the thickets and cane-brakes with the rifle bullet and the Indian yell.  Even the women were heroes, and their are instances in abundance on record, where, in defence of their children and cabins, they conducted with an undaunted energy of attack or defence, which would throw into shade the vaunted bravery in the bulletins of regular battles.

These magnanimous pioneers seem to have had a presentiment that they had a great work to accomplish—­laying the foundations of a state in the wilderness—­a work from which they were to be deterred, neither by hunger, nor toil, nor danger, nor death.  For tenderness and affection, they had hearts of flesh.  For the difficulties and dangers of their positions, their bosoms were of iron.  THEY FEARED GOD, AND HAD NO OTHER FEAR.

CHAPTER XIII.

Disastrous battle near the Blue Licks—­General Clarke’s expedition against the Miami towns—­Massacre of McClure’s family—­The horrors of Indian assaults throughout the settlements—­General Harmar’s expedition—­Defeat of General St. Clair—­Gen. Wayne’s victory, and a final peace with the Indians.