Several efforts were made in the ensuing years to people the
country, but numbers of the settlers were slain by the
Indians, whose hostility made the task so perilous that a
permanent settlement was not made till 1775. The place then
settled--a fine location on the Kentucky River--was called,
in honor of its founder, Boonesborough. Here a small fort
was built, to which the adventurer now brought his family,
being determined to make it his place of abode, despite his
dusky foes. "My wife and daughter," he says, "were the first
white women that ever stood on the banks of Kentucky River."
It was a dangerous step they had taken. The savages, furious
at this invasion of their hunting-grounds, were ever on the
alert against their pale-faced foes. In the following spring
Boone's daughter, with two other girls, who had
thoughtlessly left the fort to gather flowers, were seized
by ambushed Indians and hurried away into the forest depths.
Their loss was soon learned, and the distracted parents,
with seven companions, were quickly in pursuit through the
far-reaching forest. For two days, with the skill of trained
scouts, they followed the trail which the girls, true
hunters' daughters, managed to mark by shreds of their
clothing which they tore off and dropped by the way.
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