Boone felt this was one more chance to save his men from slaughter. The conference was called about sixty yards from the gate of the fort; the articles were read, agreed upon, and signed. Then the commander said that among the Indians it was customary on such occasions to show their sincerity by two Indians shaking each white man by the hand. Boone agreed to this. At once two Indians approached each of the nine white men and as they took his hand attempted to seize and make him prisoner. The white men with great strength sprang away, and fled to the fort amid a shower of bullets from Indians in ambush, who came rushing up with the most terrifying yells. All reached the fort in safety with the exception of one wounded man. [Illustration: "The fight now began in earnest."] The fight now began in earnest, and lasted nine days. The enemy tried various ways to overcome the garrison. At one time they secreted a part of their force under the bank of the Kentucky, attacked the fort on the opposite side, and finally pretended to retreat; this ruse failing, they began to undermine the houses by excavating under the river bank and digging toward the fort. This was discovered by the muddy water caused by the great quantity of the loose earth they were compelled to throw into the river. Boone at once began to dig a trench within the fort, and as the loose dirt was taken up it was thrown over the fort wall. Finding their plan was discovered, the Indians abandoned it, but that night attempted to fire the fort by pitching torches of cane and hickory bark upon it. A rain had fallen a few hours before and the wet logs did not burn easily, and the flames were soon extinguished by the whites. Next day finding that they could not conquer by "force or fraud" and that their stock of provisions was almost exhausted, they paraded and withdrew after thirty-seven had been killed in sight of the fort and many others wounded. In the fort there were only four wounded. After the savages had gone the white men picked up one hundred and twenty-five pounds of leaden bullets which had fallen near the fort walls, besides the vast number that had lodged in the walls and palisades. THE LOST BABY If your baby brother or sister should be lost, even though our country is thickly peopled and we have a perfect network of telephones and telegraphs across it, think how alarmed you would feel! Yet think how much more anxious a mother would be if her baby were lost in a wilderness where wolves, wildcats, and panthers roamed hungry and fierce. This really happened to a baby boy named Bennie Craig. His father, Benjamin Craig, who presented his commission as a magistrate at the first county court held in Gallatin County, 1799, left Virginia in 1781 with his wife and three children. In those early days people traveled on foot or horseback, carrying with them what household necessities they could by means of pack horses.