It is not our province in the present work to detail any thing not directly connected with our story; and therefore we shall pass on, after a cursory glance at the main facts in question.  Sometime in March, a party of Wyandots made a descent upon Estill’s station, which stood near the present site of Richmond; and having killed and scalped a young lady, and captured a Negro slave, were induced, by the exaggerated account which the latter gave of the force within, to an immediate retreat; whereby, probably, the lives of the women and children, almost the only occupants, were saved—­Captain Estill himself, with his garrison, and several new recruits, being at the time away, on a search for these very savages, who were known by some unmistakable signs to be in the vicinity.  Word being despatched to Estill, of what had transpired in his absence, he immediately sought out the trail of the retreating foes, which he followed with his men, and toward night of the second day overtook them at Hinston’s Fork of Licking, where a desperate engagement immediately ensued.  At the onset, there were twenty-five Indians, and exactly the same number of whites; but the immediate desertion, in a cowardly manner, of a certain Lieutenant Miller, with six men under his command, left the odds greatly in favor of the Wyandots, who were all picked warriors.  Notwithstanding the cowardice of their companions, our little Spartan band fought most heroically for an hour and three-quarters; when the few survivors, on both sides, being almost worn out, ceased hostilities as by mutual consent.  In this ever memorable action, Captain Estill, a brave and popular man, together with nine of his gallant companions, fell to rise no more.  Four others were badly wounded, leaving only the same number of unharmed survivors.  The Indians, it was afterwards ascertained, had seventeen warriors killed on the field, among whom was one of their bravest chiefs, and two others severely wounded; and there has been a tradition since among the Wyandots, that only one survivor ever returned to tell the tale.

The news of the foregoing disastrous skirmish flew like wild fire, to use a common phrase, throughout the borders, and, together with others of less note, served to kindle the fire of vengeance in the bosoms of the settlers, and excite a deeper hostility than ever against the savage foe.  Nor was the subsequent conduct of the Indians themselves calculated to soften this bitter feeling against them; for, to use the words of a modern writer, “The woods again teemed with savages, and no one was safe from attack beyond the walls of a station.  The influence of the British, and the constant pressure of the Long Knives, upon the red-men, had produced a union of the various tribes of the northwest, who seemed to be gathering again to strike a fatal blow at the frontier settlements; and had they been led by a Phillip, a Pontiac, or a Tecumseh, it is impossible to estimate the injury they might have inflicted.”