During the day, the besiegers kept up a constant fire against the stockade, but did little damage. They wasted an enormous amount of ammunition, for after their departure the garrison gathered up over two thousand pounds of musket-balls in the vicinity, not to mention the number that were embedded in the walls of the stockade. The settlers, on the other hand, husbanded their resources and fired only when there was a good chance of doing execution. Men stood to the port-holes constantly, and an Indian could not show himself in the clearing during daylight but he immediately became the target of some sharpshooter. A negro had escaped from the fort during the parley that preceded the attack which has been described, carrying with him a rifle and ammunition. This man took up his station in a tree, at a distance which he considered safe to himself but which rendered his fire practically harmless. He spent several days in shooting at the occupants of the stockade, but little attention was paid to him until one of his nearly spent bullets hit a woman on the hip, causing a painful contusion. Then some of the men tried to dislodge him. They had expended half a dozen or more charges without effect when Boone sauntered up to them. “I’m afraid you’re using up a lot of good powder and shot needlessly, Aiken,” Boone said to one just about to aim. “We’re trying to get the range, Captain,” replied the man. “Well, let me see if I can get it for you.” The head of the negro was presently seen as he peered out from between two forking branches of the tree. Boone’s eye ran over the ground in a calculation of the distance. Then he rested his rifle on a post and took a long, steady aim. There was a whip-like crack, and the body of the negro came hurtling to the ground. Afterwards it was found with a ball in the skull, the shot having been made at one hundred and seventy-five yards. The Indians who buried, or carried away, their own dead, would not touch the body of the negro. The siege had continued for five or six days when Boone, from his lookout in the upper story of a blockhouse, noticed one morning that the water below the fort was muddy whilst that above ran clear as usual. The bank was high and nothing could be seen to account for the strange condition. Boone watched for several hours, during which time the phenomenon continued, and came to the conclusion that the Indians, directed by their white allies, were endeavoring to enter the fort by mining. Having calculated with sufficient precision the direction of the tunnel under construction by the besiegers, Boone began counter-operations. He set men to work digging an underground passage from within the stockade. The earth that was excavated, he ordered to be thrown over the palisade as an intimation to the attackers of what he was about. This had the desired effect. The Indians realized that they were baulked, and on the following day abandoned their project.