[Footnote: This rumor was caused by Clark's gunboat, which, as will be hereafter mentioned, had been sent up to the mouth of the Licking; some Shawnees saw it, and thought Clark was preparing for an inroad.] They at once countermarched, but on reaching the threatened towns found that the alarm had been groundless.

Most of the savages, with characteristic fickleness of temper, then declined to go farther; but a body of somewhat over three hundred Hurons and Lake Indians remained.

With these, and their Detroit rangers, Caldwell and McKee crossed the Ohio and marched into Kentucky, to attack the small forts of Fayette County.
Fayette lay between the Kentucky and the Ohio rivers, and was then the least populous and most exposed of the three counties into which the growing young commonwealth was divided.

In 1782 it contained but five of the small stockaded towns in which all the early settlers were obliged to gather.

The best defended and most central was Lexington, round which were grouped the other four--Bryan's (which was the largest), McGee's, McConnell's, and Boon's.