At Detroit, Hamilton offered the Indians five hundred dollars if they would let Daniel Boone go free, as he wanted to use him as a British scout. The savages refused and took him to their chief village in the Ohio country. Boone knew their language, but he pretended not to understand a word they said among themselves. He seemed to be very fond of their mode of life and acted pleased when they told him they were going to make him a chief. He won their good will by not wincing when they tortured him to see if he could prove himself worthy of that great honor. The white chief was the best marksman in all the tribe. When they let him go off hunting by himself they counted the bullets and measured the gunpowder they gave him. But he cut the bullets in two and used very small charges of powder, thus saving nearly half to use when he should find a chance to escape. Hearing the others talking of an attack they were going to make on Boonesboro, he slipped away one morning while out hunting, when he would not be missed till night. Not daring to shoot game for food, nor wishing to waste time to dress and cook it, he was nearly starved when he reached the Kentucky fort, after going one hundred and sixty miles through a region full of hostile tribes. The Indians must have wasted many days searching for him, as it was six weeks before his adopted tribe and other savages arrived at Boonesboro. Daniel Boone held the fort for ten days, with fifty white men and boys and twenty-five women and children, against four hundred and fifty red men. Several times the Indians set fire to the fort, but the brave white men put out the fire at great risk to their lives. The Indians tried to tunnel under the log fence, but the cunning white chief met and beat them back at every point. At last the savages gave up the fight and slunk away. Now that so many settlers had moved to Kentucky, the old hero found that country too crowded to suit him, so he and his family moved to a wilder region on the Missouri River, “to find elbow room,” he said. After hundreds of thrilling adventures and narrow escapes, the Indian hunter died in bed, with his wife and three of his children around him. A friend who was near him in his latter days said of Daniel Boone: “Never was old age more green nor gray hairs more graceful.” GEORGE ROGERS CLARK, THE YOUNG HERO WITH A GREAT IDEA