The Virginia troops, who had served in the Canadian war, had been promised a bounty in Western lands. Many of them being anxious to ascertain their value, and deeming this a favorable period for the making of surveys, collected at Fort Pitt in the fall of 1773; and descending the Ohio river to its falls, at Louisville, proceeded from thence to explore the country preparatory to a perfection of their grants.[8] About the same time too, General Thompson of Pennsylvania, commenced an extensive course of surveys, of the rich land on the North Fork of Licking; and other individuals following his example, in the ensuing winter the country swarmed with land adventurers and surveyors. So sensible were they all, that these attempts to appropriate those lands to their own use, would produce acts of hostility, that they went prepared to resist those acts; and the first party who took up their abode in Kentucky, no sooner selected a situation for their residence, than they proceeded to erect a fort for their security.[9] The conduct of the Indians soon convinced them that their apprehensions were not ill founded; and many of them, in consequence of the hostile movements which were being made, and the robberies which were committed, ascended the Ohio river to Wheeling. It is not known that any murders were done previously to this, and subsequently to the attack and repulse of the emigrants who were led on by Boone in 1773. This event happened on the tenth day of October; and it was in April the ensuing year, that the land adventurers retired to Wheeling. In this interval of time, nothing could, perhaps, be done by the Indians, but make preparation [111] for hostilities in the spring. Indeed it very rarely happens, that the Indians engage in active war during the winter; and there is, moreover, a strong presumption, that they were for some time ignorant of the fact that there were adventurers in the country; and consequently, they knew of no object there, on which their hostile intentions could operate.--Be this as it may, it is certain that, from the movements of the Indians at the close of the winter, the belief was general, that they were assuming a warlike attitude, and meditating a continuance of hostilities. War was certainly begun on their part, when Boone and his associates, were attacked and driven back to the settlement; and if it abated for a season, that abatement was attributable to other causes, than a disposition to remain quiet and peaceable, while the country was being occupied by the whites.