Although few other attacks were reported during the summer or autumn, the people were in a continual state of apprehension, neglected their crops, and either huddled in the neighborhood of the settlements, or "stations" as they were called, or abandoned the country altogether. In the midst of this uneasiness Floyd wrote to his friend Preston, in Virginia, urging that help be sent to the distressed colony: "They all seem deaf to anything we can say to dissuade them.... I think more than three hundred men have left the country since I came out, and not one has arrived, except a few _cabiners_ down the Ohio. I want to return as much as any man can do; but if I leave the country now there is scarcely one single man who will not follow the example. When I think of the deplorable condition a few helpless families are likely to be in, I conclude to sell my life as dearly as I can in their defense rather than make an ignominious escape." [Illustration: FORT BOONESBOROUGH. Drawn from Henderson's plans and other historical data by George W. Ranck; reduced from the latter's "Boonesborough" (Filson Club Publications, No. 16).] Seven stations had now been abandoned--Huston's, on the present site of Paris; Hinkson's, on the Licking; Bryan's, on the Elkhorn; Lee's, on the Kentucky; Harrod's, or the Boiling Spring settlement; Whitley's, and Logan's. But three remained occupied--McClellan's, Harrodsburg, and Boonesborough. Up to this time none of the Kentucky stations had been fortified; there had been some unfinished work at Boonesborough, but it was soon allowed to fall into decay. Work was now resumed at all three of the occupied settlements; this consisted simply of connecting the cabins, which faced an open square, by lines of palisades. It was only at McClellan's, however, that even this slender protection was promptly completed; at Boonesborough and Harrodsburg the work, although but a task of a few days, dragged slowly, and was not finished for several months. It was next to impossible for Boone and the other militia captains to induce men to labor at the common defenses in time of peace.