42 The Winning of the West 



ments. In January Boone went, with twenty-nine 

 other men, to the Blue Licks to make salt for the 

 different garrisons for hitherto this necessary of 

 life had been brought in, at great trouble and ex- 

 pense, from the settlements. 30 The following month, 

 having sent three men back with loads of salt, he 

 and all the others were surprised and captured by 

 a party of eighty or ninety Miamis, led by two 

 Frenchmen, named Baubin and Lorimer. 31 When 

 surrounded, so that there was no hope of escape, 

 Boone agreed that all should surrender on condi- 

 tion of being well treated. The Indians on this oc- 

 casion loyally kept faith. The two Frenchmen were 

 anxious to improve their capture by attacking 

 Boonesborough ; but the fickle savages were satisfied 

 with their success, and insisted on returning to their 

 villages. Boone .was taken, first to Old Chillicothe, 

 the chief Shawnee town on the Little Miami, and 

 then to Detroit, where Hamilton and the other En- 

 glishmen treated him well, and tried to ransom him 

 for a hundred pounds sterling. However, the In- 

 dians had become very much attached to him, and 

 refused the ransom, taking their prisoner back to 

 Chillicothe. Here he was adopted into the tribe, 

 and remained for two months, winning the good- 

 will of the Shawnees by his cheerfulness and his 

 skill as a hunter, and being careful not to rouse 

 their jealousy by any too great display of skill at 

 the shooting-matches. 



30 See Clark's Diary, entry for October 25, 1777. 



31 Haldimand MSS. B, 122, p. 35. Hamilton to Carleton, 

 April 25, 1778. He says fourscore Miamis. 



