Hannah of Kentucky - James Otis |
Colonel Boone divided the men into two companies, for it was not certain but that those Indians who had captured the girls might have carried them away in a canoe. One party, with Colonel Callaway at the head, set off for Licking River, thinking they might come upon the Shawnees at the ford of the lower Blue Lick, while the other, led by Colonel Boone himself and including Samuel Henderson and Flanders Callaway, followed the trail that led up from the creek.
Colonel Callaway's party started two hours before daylight, for they had no trail to follow; but Colonel Boone waited until day was just beginning to break, when he and the others of his company went out of the fort, after cautioning us to keep the gates closed and barred until they should come back or had sent a messenger.
My father was given charge of the stockade, and he took his station in the watch-house nearest the river, while we women and children wandered around from one cabin to another, too sad to be able to go about our regular work.
During the next three days we were most anxious. Nearly every one in the stockade had given up hope, and all were mourning the poor girls as dead, or worse, when father, who was in the watch-house, shouted so that you might have heard him half a mile away "They're coming! They're coming, and the girls are with them!'