[13] June 20, Col. William Preston, having charge of the defenses of Fincastle county, authorized Capt. William Russell to employ two faithful woodsmen to go to Kentucky and inform the several surveying parties at work there, of their danger. June 26, Russell replied, "I have engaged to start immediately on the occasion, two of the best hands I could think of--Daniel Boone and Michael Stoner; who have engaged to reach the country as low as the Falls, and to return by way of Gasper's Lick on Cumberland, and through Cumberland Gap; so that, by the assiduity of these men, if it is not too late, I hope the gentlemen will be apprized of the imminent danger they are daily in." Boone and Stoner journeyed overland to Harrodsburg, where Col. James Harrod and thirty men were making improvements and laying out the town. The thrifty Boone secured a good lot, hastily built a claim cabin, and proceeded on his tour. At Fontaine Blue, three miles below Harrodsburg, the two scouts found another party of surveyors, whom they warned; and in going down the Kentucky River came across Capt. John Floyd's surveying party,--eight men, who had left Preston's house for Kentucky, April 9,--who agreed to meet them farther down the river. But circumstances prevented a reunion, and Floyd's band penetrated through the wilderness on their own account, and had a painful journey of sixteen days' duration before reaching Russell's Fort on Clinch River. Meanwhile, Boone and Stoner descended to the mouth of the Kentucky, and thence to the Falls of the Ohio, and found more surveyors at Mann's Lick, four miles southeast. Indians were making bloody forays through the district, and the scouts had frequent thrilling adventures. Finally, after having been absent sixty-one days and travelled 800 miles, they reached Russell's on the Clinch, in safety. Russell was absent on the Point Pleasant campaign, and Boone set out with a party of recruits to reinforce him, but was ordered back to defend the Clinch settlements. He was busy at this task until the close of the war. He was present at the Watauga treaty, March 17, 1775; later that year, he led another band to Kentucky, and early in April built Fort Boone, on Kentucky River, "a little below Big Lick," the nucleus of the Henderson colony.--R. G. T. [14] The party numbered about four hundred men. The line of march was about ninety miles in length, as estimated by the zig-zag course pursued.--R. G. T. [15] They were Jonathan Zane, Thomas Nicholson and Tady Kelly. A better woodsman than the first named of these three, perhaps never lived.