It had now become a matter of infinite moment that he should immediately escape and carry to his friends in the fort the tidings of their peril. But the slightest unwary movement would have led the suspicious Indians so to redouble their vigilance as to render escape utterly impossible. So skilfully did he conceal the emotions which agitated him, and so successfully did he feign entire contentment with his lot, that his captors, all absorbed in the enterprise in which they were engaged, remitted their ordinary vigilance. On the morning of the sixteenth of June, Boone rose very early to take his usual hunt. With his secreted ammunition, and the amount allowed him by the Indians for the day, he hoped to be able to save himself from starvation, during his flight of five days through the pathless wilderness. There was a distance of one hundred and sixty miles between Old Chilicothe and Boonesborough. The moment his flight should be suspected, four hundred and fifty Indian warriors, breathing vengeance, and in perfect preparation for the pursuit, would be on his track. His capture would almost certainly result in his death by the most cruel tortures; for the infuriated Indians would wreak upon him all their vengeance. It is however not probable that this silent, pensive man allowed these thoughts seriously to disturb his equanimity. An instinctive trust in God seemed to inspire him. He was forty-three years of age. In the knowledge of wood-craft, and in powers of endurance, no Indian surpassed him. Though he would be pursued by sagacious and veteran warriors and by young Indian braves, a pack of four hundred and fifty savages following with keener scent than that of the bloodhound, one poor victim, yet undismayed, he entered upon the appalling enterprise. The history of the world perhaps presents but few feats so difficult, and yet so successfully performed. And yet the only record which this modest man makes, in his autobiography, of this wonderful adventure is as follows: "On the sixteenth, before sunrise, I departed in the most secret manner, and arrived at Boonesborough on the twentieth, after a journey of one hundred and sixty miles, during which I had but one meal."