Boone now started for the settlement with all possible speed, his front and flanks guarded by scouts feeling for the large body of Indians which he was striving to overtake. On the third day the Indians were reported to be but a few miles away and immediately in the course of the returning settlers. Boone now made a détour and redoubled his speed. The army of warriors was successfully passed and left behind. The raiders entered Boonesborough, after their three hundred miles’ march, in time to allow the occupants of the fort nearly twenty-four hours’ time for preparation. The following day the Indian force made its appearance. It consisted of about four hundred warriors, for the most part Shawnees, but including Wyandots, Miamis and Delawares. They were under the command of Blackfish, Boone’s adoptive father. Accompanying the Indians was a small body of French-Canadians led by Captain De Quindre, of the Detroit militia. This formidable battalion marched to within a few hundred yards of the stockade and sent forward a white flag with a demand upon the garrison to “surrender the fort in the name of his Britannic Majesty.” There were at Boonesborough fewer than seventy males capable of bearing arms, and a number of women and children. Whilst the defences were in good condition and a plentiful supply of ammunition was on hand, the settlers were not fully prepared to resist a protracted siege, such as the present situation promised. There was far from a sufficiency of water stored, and the cattle, which was collected at the time of the first alarm, had been permitted to return to the woods. In fact, a party that had been sent out the previous day to round up and bring in some beeves had not yet returned to the stockade. Despite these drawbacks and the apparent hopelessness of resistance, Boone did not for an instant entertain the idea of capitulating. Nor did he canvass the opinions of his men, but took it for granted that they were of the same mind as himself. In answer to the summons, however, he declared that the garrison needed time for consideration, and so sure of ultimate success were the assailants that they granted two days’ respite from hostilities. This intermission was employed by the settlers in filling all their water-vessels and in getting the party with the cattle safely within the walls. At the termination of the truce De Quindre approached the fort for the purpose of receiving the answer of the defenders. Boone had devised a ruse to deceive the Canadian as to the number of men in the place. When De Quindre neared the gate, which was thrown open that he and Boone, with their escorts, might meet just outside of it, the officers perceived seventy backwoodsmen grouped in the foreground, whilst standing about in other distant parts of the square were some thirty more “buckskins.” The latter, however, were women and girls dressed in the clothing of their husbands and fathers.