A Frontier Kidnapping

A Frontier Kidnapping. . , Three Girls Abducted , One hot July day in 1776, three teenage girls took the only canoe at Boonesborough out on the river with disastrous results. Fanny Callaway, Betsey Callaway, and Jemima Boone drifted too close to the eastern bank where five Indians waited. They rushed into the water, grabbed the canoe and dragged it ashore. The girls yelled out as the men forced them out of the canoe and up the steep bank. As the Indians fled with their captives, the girls' fathers rushed from the fort and organized a pursuit., The Pursuit , While Daniel Boone gathered his men, eleven-year-old John Gass swam across the river and retrieved the canoe. Meanwhile, Col. Richard Callaway and ten mounted men forded the river and galloped toward Lower Blue Licks, hoping to intercept the Indians. Boone's party followed the girls' tracks on foot, stopping only when darkness fell., The Rescue , The next day, the tracks led into a thick stand of river cane where the Indians knew they would be impossible to follow. Boone gambled-he detoured around the cane hoping to pick up traces of the girls and their captors on the other side. Two days later, Boone found their tracks on a buffalo path. Not long afterward, the men smelled smoke and roasting bison. They carefully crept within range and fired at the Indians, who fled as the rescuers swarmed the camp.