On March the 28th, as we were hunting for provisions, we found Samuel Tate’s son, who gave us an account that the Indians fired on their camp on the 27th day. My brother and I went down and found two men killed and scalped, Thomas McDowell and Jeremiah McPeters. I have sent a man down to all the lower companies in order to gather them all to the mouth of Otter Creek. My advice to you, sir, is to come or send as soon as possible. Your company is desired greatly, for the people are very uneasy, but are willing to stay and venture their lives with you; and now is the time to flusterate their (the Indians) intentions, and keep the country whilst we are in it. If we give way to them now, it will ever be the case. This day we start from the battle-ground for the mouth of Otter Creek, where we will immediately erect a fort, which will be done before you can come or send; then we can send ten men to meet you if you send for them. I am sir, your most obedient, DANIEL BOONE. N. B.--We stood on the ground and guarded our baggage till day, and lost nothing. We have about fifteen miles to Cantuck at Otter Creek. The road began “at the settlements,” which were probably in what are now Sullivan and Hawkins counties. Tennessee, but mostly along the Watauga River, then thought to be a part of Virginia. The road was a continuation of the Cherokee trail through the mountains. This trail served the great migration following the Revolutionary War in Tennessee and Kentucky. From the settlements there is a westerly course to the Holston River at Long Island near the site of old Long Island Fort constructed by Colonel Bird to winter his army during the French and Indian War in 1758. At this place he received some reinforcements and then continued in a generally westward direction through country he was more or less familiar with to the Clinch River, then across the ridge to the Powell River, and finally to Cumberland Gap, through which he entered the land of “Kentucke.” Here he arrived at the Warrior’s Trail leading northward, so called because Kentucky had been a sort of neutral hunting grounds of the Indians from the North, the Miamis, Shawnees, Wyandots, and others and of the Cherokees, Creeks, Catawbas, and others, from the South. Nevertheless the Indians from the South habitually crossed over and fought those from the North and vice versa, hence a large and much frequented trail. [Illustration: MAP SHOWING MAIN HIGHWAYS AND WATERWAYS IN UNITED STATES ABOUT 1830 When the Railroads Entered the Industrial Arena, the Country Was Being Covered With a Net Work of Highways. (Based on Tanner’s Map of 1825 and Turner in “American Nation,” Vol. XIV.)]