Early in 1778 a severe calamity befell the settlements. In January Boon went, with twenty-nine other men, to the Blue Licks to make salt for the different garrisons--for hitherto this necessary of life had been brought in, at great trouble and expense, from the settlements. [Footnote: See Clark's Diary, entry for October 25, 1777.] The following month, having sent three men back with loads of salt, he and all the others were surprised and captured by a party of eighty or ninety Miamis, led by two Frenchmen, named Baubin and Lorimer. [Footnote: Haldimand MSS. B., 122, p. 35. Hamilton to Carleton, April 25, 1778. He says four-score Miamis.] When surrounded, so that there was no hope of escape, Boon agreed that all should surrender on condition of being well treated. The Indians on this occasion loyally kept faith. The two Frenchmen were anxious to improve their capture by attacking Boonsborough; but the fickle savages were satisfied with their success, and insisted on returning to their villages. Boon was taken, first to Old Chillicothe, the chief Shawnee town on the Little Miami, and then to Detroit, where Hamilton and the other Englishmen treated him well, and tried to ransom him for a hundred pounds sterling. However, the Indians had become very much attached to him, and refused the ransom, taking their prisoner back to Chillicothe. Here he was adopted into the tribe, and remained for two months, winning the good-will of the Shawnees by his cheerfulness and his skill as a hunter, and being careful not to rouse their jealousy by any too great display of skill at the shooting-matches. Hamilton was urging the Indians to repeat their ravages of the preceding year; Mingos, Shawnees, Delawares, and Miamis came to Detroit, bringing scalps and prisoners. A great council was held at that post early in June. [Footnote: _Do._, June 14, 1778.] All the northwestern tribes took part, and they received war-belts from the Iroquois and messages calling on them to rise as one man. They determined forthwith to fall on the frontier in force. By their war parties, and the accompanying bands of tories, Hamilton sent placards to be distributed among the frontiersmen, endeavoring both by threat and by promise of reward, to make them desert the patriot cause. [Footnote: Do., April 25, 1778.] Boon Escapes and Makes a Foray. In June a large war party gathered at Chillicothe to march against Boonsborough, and Boon determined to escape at all hazards, so that he might warn his mends. One morning before sunrise he eluded the vigilance of his Indian companions and started straight through the woods for his home where he arrived in four days, having had but one meal during the whole journey of a hundred and sixty miles. [Footnote: Boon's Narrative.]