In this campaign the Indians, while with much sagacity they combined their main force to encounter the army under Lord Dunmore, detached separate bands of picked warriors to assail the settlements on the frontier at every exposed point. These bands of painted savages, emerging from the solitudes of the forests at midnight, would fall with hideous yells upon the lone cabin of the settler, or upon a little cluster of log huts, and in a few hours nothing would be left but smouldering ruins and gory corpses. To Daniel Boone, who had manifested wonderful skill in baffling all the stratagems of Indian warfare, was assigned the difficult and infinitely important task of protecting these frontiers. Three garrisons were placed under his command, over which he exercised supreme control. He located them at the most available points; noiselessly passed from one to the other to see that they were fortified according to the most approved principles of military engineering then known in the forest. His scouts were everywhere, to give prompt notice of any approach of hostile bands. Thus this quiet, silent man, with great efficiency, fulfilled his mission to universal satisfaction. Without seeking fame, without thinking even of such a reward for his services, his sagacity and his virtues were rapidly giving him a very enviable reputation throughout all those regions. The discomfited Indians had become thoroughly disheartened, and sent couriers to Lord Dunmore imploring peace. Comstock, their chief, seems to have been a man not only of strong native powers of mind, but of unusual intelligence. With quite a brilliant retinue of his warriors, he met Lord Dunmore in council at a point in the valley of the Scioto, about four miles south of the present city of Circleville. Comstock himself opened the deliberations with a speech of great dignity and argumentative power. In a loud voice, which was heard, as he intended, by all in the camp, he portrayed the former prosperous condition of the Indian tribes, powerful in numbers and abounding in wealth, in the enjoyment of their rich corn-fields, and their forests filled with game. With this he contrasted very forcibly their present wretched condition, with diminished numbers, and with the loss of their hunting grounds. He reproached the whites with the violation of their treaty obligations, and declared that the Indians had been forbearing in the extreme under the wrongs which had been inflicted upon them. "We know," said he, "perfectly well, our weakness when compared with the English. The Indians desire only justice. The war was not sought by us, but was forced upon us. It was commenced by the whites. We should have merited the contempt of every white man could we have tamely submitted to the murders which have been inflicted upon our unoffending people at the hands of the white men."