Whether the foregoing remarks may be deemed by the reader a digression, or otherwise, we have certainly felt ourself justified in making them; from the fact, that our story is designed to be historical in all its bearings; and because many months being supposed to elapse, ere our characters are again brought upon the stage of action, it seemed expedient to give a general view of what was taking place in the interval.  Having done so, we will now forthwith resume our narrative.

About five miles from Lexington, a little to the left of the present road leading thence to Maysville, and on a gentle rise of the southern bank of the Elkhorn, at the time of which we write, stood Bryan’s Station, to which we must now call the reader’s attention.  This station was founded in the year 1779, by William Bryan, (a brother-in-law of Daniel Boone,) who had, prior to the events we are now about to describe, been surprised and killed by the Indians in the vicinity of a stream called Cane Run.

This fort, at the period in question, was one of great importance to the early settlers—­standing as it did on what was considered at the time of its erection, the extreme frontier, and, by this means, extending their area of security.  The station consisted of forty cabins, placed in parallel lines, connected by strong pallisades, forming a parallelogram of thirty rods by twenty, and enclosing something like four acres of ground.  Outside of the cabins and pallisades, to render the fort still more secure, were planted heavy pickets, a foot in diameter, and some twelve feet in height above the ground; so that it was impossible for an enemy to scale them, or affect them in the least, with any thing short of fire and cannon ball.  To guard against the former, and prevent the besiegers making a lodgment under the walls, at each of the four corners or angles, was erected what was called a block-house—­a building which projected beyond the pickets, a few feet above the ground, and enabled the besieged to pour a raking fire across the advanced party of the assailants.  Large folding gates, on huge, wooden hinges, in front and rear, opened into the enclosure, through which men, wagons, horses, and domestic cattle, had admittance and exit.  In the center, as the reader has doubtless already divined, was a broad space, into which the doors of the cabins opened, and which served the purpose of a regular common, where teams and cattle were oftentimes secured, where wrestling and other athletic sports took place.  The cabins were all well constructed, with puncheon floors, the roofs of which sloped inward, to avoid as much as possible their being set on fire by burning arrows, shot by the Indians for the purpose, a practice by no means uncommon during a siege.  This fort, at the period referred to, was garrisoned by from forty to fifty men; and though somewhat out of repair, in respect to a few of its pallisades, was still in a condition to resist an overwhelming force, unless