The latter he killed only when their hides and meat were needed, while he followed unceasingly the dangerous beasts of prey, as being enemies of the settlers.
Throughout these years the obscure strife, made up of the individual contests of frontiersman and Indian, went on almost without a break.

The sieges, surprises, and skirmishes in which large bands took part were chronicled; but there is little reference in the books to the countless conflicts wherein only one or two men on a side were engaged.

The west could never have been conquered, in the teeth of so formidable and ruthless a foe, had it not been for the personal prowess of the pioneers themselves.

Their natural courage and hardihood, and their long training in forest warfare, [Footnote: The last point is important.

No Europeans could have held their own for a fortnight in Kentucky; nor is it likely that the western men twenty years before, at the time of Braddock's war, could have successfully colonized such a far-off country.] made them able to hold their own and to advance step by step, where a peaceable population would have been instantly butchered or driven off.