McClure now concluded to retreat, but he had not proceeded far, before he met an Indian on horseback attended by a boy on foot.  The warrior dismounted, and seating himself on a log, offered his pipe to McClure.  Soon other Indians were seen advancing in the distance, when McClure’s sociable friend, informed him that when his companions came up, they would take him (McClure) and put him on a horse, tying his feet under its belly.  In order to convey to his white brother an adequate idea of the honor intended him, the Indian got astride the log and locked his feet together.  McClure took this opportunity of shooting his amiable but rather eccentric companion, and then ran off into the woods and escaped.

This affair the reader will bear in mind, was with southern Indians, not with those of the north-western tribes, from whom the Kentuckians had suffered most.  The only demonstration of hostility made by these, this year, appears to have been the pursuit of the boats mentioned before.  In March, 1785, a man of the name of Elliot, who had emigrated to the country near the mouth of the Kentucky River, was killed by Indians, and his house destroyed and family dispersed.

As Colonel Thomas Marshall from Virginia was descending the Ohio, in a flat boat, he was hailed from the northern shore by a man, who announced himself as James Girty, and said that he had been placed by his brother Simon, to warn all boats of the danger of being attacked by the Indians.  He told them that efforts would be made to decoy them ashore by means of renegade white men, who would represent themselves as in great distress.  He exhorted them to steel their hearts against all such appeals, and to keep the middle of the river.  He said that his brother regretted the injuries he had inflicted upon the whites, and would gladly repair them as much as possible, to be re-admitted to their society, having lost all his influence among the Indians.  This repentance on the part of Girty seems to have been of short duration, as he remained among the Indians till his death, which according to some took place at the battle of the Thames, though others deny it.

However sincere or lasting Girty’s repentance had been, he could never have lived in safety among the whites; he had been too active, and if common accounts are to be credited, too savage in his hostility to them, to admit of forgiveness; and it is probable that a knowledge of this prevented him from abandoning the Indians.

“About the same time,” says McClung, “Captain James Ward, at present a highly-respectable citizen of Mason County, Kentucky, was descending the Ohio, under circumstances which rendered a rencontre with the Indians peculiarly to be dreaded.  He, together with half a dozen others, one of them his nephew, embarked in a crazy boat, about forty-five feet long, and eight feet wide, with no other bulwark than a single pine plank, above each gunnel.  The boat was much encumbered with baggage, and seven horses were on board.  Having seen no enemy for several days, they had become secure and careless, and permitted the boat to drift within fifty yards of the Ohio shore.  Suddenly, several hundred Indians showed themselves on the bank, and running down boldly to the water’s edge, opened a heavy fire upon the boat.  The astonishment of the crew may be conceived.”