Meantime the Northern savages, under their own leaders, under the leadership of British officers, under the leadership of the dangerous renegades, Girty and McKee, came down time and again on the Kentucky settlements. The salt parties must go out as before, and in one of these excursions Squire Boone, Daniel’s beloved older brother, fell a victim to the savages. In the celebrated and ill-fated McGary fight—the blackest battle of all Kentucky—a son of Daniel Boone’s fell with the flower of the frontier. Again and again the tribes came raging down, the Cherokees, the Pottawatamies, the Shawanese, all joining hands to wipe these settlements from the face of the earth. In the fight at Bryant’s Station, little as it was, thirty of the savages were left on the field. The year 1781 was one of wrath for the thin firing line on the western side of the Divide. All the fights and the fighters centered about or came from the “Dark and Bloody Ground.” Clark, Hardin, Harmar—all these started from Kentucky, and by reason of Kentucky. It was General Scott with one thousand Kentuckians that avenged the horrible defeat of St. Clair, killed two hundred of the victorious savages, and took back from them their booty. In the seven years from 1783 to 1790 there were fifteen hundred whites killed or taken captive in the state of Kentucky. In all these affairs, we may be sure, Daniel Boone held his full and manly part. He had drunk the war-drink of the savages during his captivity, and the spirit of the savage had entered into him. Yet Boone was simple and unpretentious as any leader that ever lived. Once Simon Kenton, himself a hardy soul, set out with some friends on a little hunt from the station at Boonesborough. They were fired upon by Indians from ambush. One man was shot down by the Indians within seventy yards of the stockade. His murderer would have scalped him had not Kenton dropped him, a corpse beside a corpse. Then it was general mêlée until Daniel Boone and ten others came out from the stockade to assist their fighting comrades. Kenton killed another Indian, and then there came a rush. Boone directed a charge upon the savages, but was shot down, a ball breaking his leg. Kenton, brave fellow that he was, shot down Boone’s assailant and carried Boone safely into the fort. As he lay on the couch receiving attention for the leg broken by the ball, Boone sent for Kenton and said: “Well, Simon, you have behaved like a man to-day. Indeed you are a fine fellow.” That was all there was to it. They made no great parade in those days. There was no proclamation in the public places. There were no illustrated newspapers, no gifted war correspondents to describe the heroism of that time. A similar act to-day would have made both participants famous, would perhaps have won for both a Victoria Cross, and would have afforded imaginative correspondents excellent opportunity. The West had no Victoria Crosses, nor needed any.