Page:The Conquest.djvu/59

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TWO WARS AT ONCE
43

these charges against Governor Hamilton. Last Spring I was captured by the Shawnees and dragged to Detroit. Governor Hamilton took pity on me and offered the Indians one hundred dollars for my release. They refused to take it. But he gave me a horse, and on that horse I eventually made my escape."

"Did that prevent Governor Hamilton from sending an armed force of British and Indians to besiege Boonsboro?" inquired Jefferson.

Boone had to admit that it did not. But for that timely escape and warning Boonsboro would have fallen.

But Boone in gratitude went to the dungeon and offered what consolation he could to the imprisoned Governor.

The fact is, that Daniel Boone carried ever on his breast, wrapped in a piece of buckskin, that old commission of Lord Dunmore's. It saved him from the Indians; it won Hamilton.


XII

TWO WARS AT ONCE

THE sunbeams glistened on the naked skin of an Indian runner, as, hair flying in the wind, from miles away he came panting to Clark at Kaskaskia.

"There is to be an attack on San Loui'. Wabasha, the Sioux, and Matchekewis—"

"How do you know?"

"I hear at Michilimackinac,—Winnebagoe, Sauk, Fox, Menomonie."

Clark laughed and gave the messenger a drink of taffia. But the moment the painted savage slid away the Colonel prepared to inform his friends at St. Louis.

"Pouf!" laughed the careless commandant, drinking his wine at the Government House. "Why need we fear? Are not our relation wit de Indian friendly?