310 The Winning of the West 



the attack on the part of the Indians was as wanton 

 as it was cruel; and in all probability this view was 

 correct, and their assailants were actuated more by 

 the desire for scalps and plunder than by resentment 

 at the occupation of hunting grounds to which they 

 could have had little claim. In fact, throughout 

 the history of the discovery and first settlement of 

 Kentucky, the original outrages and murders were 

 committed by the Indians on the whites, and not 

 by the whites on the Indians. In the gloomy and 

 ferocious wars that ensued, the wrongs done by 

 each side were many and great. 



Henderson's company came into the beautiful 

 Kentucky country in mid-April, when it looked its 

 best: the trees were in leaf, the air heavy with fra- 

 grance, the snowy flowers of the dogwood whitened 

 the woods, and the banks of the streams burned dull 

 crimson with the wealth of red-bud blossoms. The 

 travelers reached the fort that Boone was building 

 on the 2Oth of the month, being welcomed to the 

 protection of its wooden walls by a volley from 

 twenty or thirty rifles. They at once set to with 

 a will to finish it, and to make it a strong place of 

 refuge against Indian attacks. It was a typical 

 forted village, such as the frontiersmen built every- 

 where in the West and Southwest during the years 

 that they were pushing their way across the con- 

 tinent in the teeth of fierce and harassing warfare; 

 in some features it was not unlike the hamlet-like 

 "tun" in which the forefathers of these same pio- 

 neers dwelt, long centuries before, when they still 



