250 The Winning of the West 



The Indians, in their unhurried retreat, followed 

 the great buffalo trace that led to the Blue Licks, 

 a broad road, beaten out through the forest by the 

 passing and repassing of the mighty herds through 

 countless generations. They camped on the further 

 side of the river; some of the savages had left, 

 but there were still nearly three hundred men in 

 all Hurons and lake Indians, with the small party 

 of rangers. 14 



mate both the numbers and loss of the whites. Boone's Nar- 

 rative, written two years after the event from memory, 

 conflicts in ^one or two particulars with his earlier report. 

 Patterson, writing long afterward, and from memory, falls 

 into gross errors, both as to the number of troops and as to 

 some of them being on foot ; his account must be relied on 

 chiefly for his own adventures. Most of the historians of 

 Kentucky give the affair very incorrectly. Butler follows 

 Marshall ; but from the Clark papers he got the right number 

 of men engaged. Marshall gives a few valuable facts; but 

 he is all wrong on certain important points. For instance, 

 he says Todd hurried into action for fear Logan would super- 

 sede him in the command ; but in reality Todd ranked Logan. 

 McClung's ornate narrative, that usually followed, hangs on 

 the very slenderest thread of truth ; it is mainly sheer fiction. 

 Prolix, tedious Collins follows the plan he usually does when 

 his rancorous prejudices do not influence him, and presents 

 half a dozen utterly inconsistent accounts, with no effort 

 whatever to reconcile them. He was an industrious collector 

 of information, and gathered an enormous quantity, some of 

 it very useful ; he recorded with the like complacency authen- 

 tic incidents of the highest importance and palpable fabrica- 

 tions or irrelevant trivialities ; and it never entered his head 

 to sift evidence or to exercise a little critical power and 

 judgment. 



14 Caldwell says that he had at first "three hundred Indians 

 and Rangers," but that before the battle "nigh 100 Indians 

 left." McKee says that there were at first "upwards of three 



