184 The Winning of the West 



of wilderness from the already inhabited districts; 

 and it was doomed to failure. On approaching the 

 gloomy and forbidding defiles of the Cumberland 

 Mountains the party was attacked by Indians. 37 Six 

 of the men, including Boone's eldest son, were slain, 

 and the cattle scattered ; and though the backwoods- 

 men rallied and repulsed their assailants, yet they 

 had suffered such loss and damage that they re- 

 treated and took up their abode temporarily on the 

 Clinch River. 



In the same year Simon Kenton, afterward fa- 

 mous as a scout and Indian fighter, in company with 

 other hunters, wandered through Kentucky. Ken- 

 ton, like every one else, was astounded at the beauty 

 and fertility of the land and the innumerable herds 

 of buffalo, elk, and other game that thronged the 

 trampled ground around the licks. One of his com- 

 panions was taken by the Indians, who burned him 

 alive. 



In the following year numerous parties of sur- 

 veyors visited the land. One of these was headed 

 by John .Floyd, who was among the ablest of the 

 Kentucky pioneers, and afterward played a promi- 

 nent part in the young commonwealth, until his 

 death at the hands of the savages. Floyd was at the 

 time assistant surveyor of Fincastle County; and 

 his party went out for the purpose of making sur- 



37 October 10, 1773, Filson's "Boone." The McAfee MSS. 

 speak of meeting Boone in Powell's Valley and getting home 

 in September; if so, it must have been the very end of the 

 month. 



