The different tribes would fall in with each other and from the fierce conflicts which generally followed these casual rencounters, the country had been known among them by the name of ‘the dark and bloody ground!’

The two adventurers soon learned the additional danger to which they were exposed.  While roving carelessly from canebrake to canebrake, and admiring the rank growth of vegetation, and the variety of timber which marked the fertility of the soil, they were suddenly alarmed by the appearance of a party of Indians, who, springing from their place of concealment, rushed upon them with a rapidity which rendered escape impossible.

They were almost instantly seized, disarmed, and made prisoners.  Their feelings may be readily imagined.  They were in the hands of an enemy who knew no alternative between adoption and torture; and the numbers and fleetness of their captors, rendered escape by open means impossible, while their jealous vigilance seemed equally fatal to any secret attempt.

Boone, however, was possessed of a temper admirably adapted to the circumstances in which he was placed.  Of a cold and saturnine, rather than an arden disposition, he was never either so much elevated by good fortune or depressed by bad, as to lose for an instant the full possession of all his faculties.  He saw that immediate escape was impossible, but he encouraged his companion, and constrained himself to accompany the Indians in all their excursions, with so calm and contented an air, that their vigilance insensibly began to relax.

[Illustration:  Capture of Boone and Stuart.]

On the seventh evening of their captivity, they encamped in a thick canebrake, and having built a large fire, lay down to rest.  The party whose duty it was to watch, were weary and negligent, and about midnight, Boone, who had not closed an eye, ascertained from the deep breathing all around him, that the whole party, including Stuart, was in a deep sleep.

Gently and gradually extricating himself from the Indians who lay around him, he walked cautiously to the spot where Stuart lay, and having succeeded in awakening him, without alarming the rest, he briefly informed him of his determination, and exhorted him to arise, make no noise, and follow him.  Stuart, although ignorant of the design, and suddenly roused from sleep, fortunately obeyed with equal silence and celerity, and within a few minutes they were beyond hearing.

Rapidly traversing the forest, by the light of the stars and the bark of the trees, they ascertained the direction in which the camp lay, but upon reaching it on the next day, to their great grief, they found it plundered and deserted, with nothing remaining to show the fate of their companions:  and even to the day of his death, Boone knew not whether they had been killed or taken, or had voluntarily abandoned their cabin and returned.[15]