The greater
risks he was willing to take in person, for it was he who made
trips to Boonesborough and Harrodsburg for a share of the powder
and lead which John Sevier was sending into Kentucky from time to
time. In the stress of conflict Robertson bore his full share of
grief, for his two elder sons and his brother fell. He himself
was often near to death. One day he was cut off in the fields and
was shot in the foot as he ran, yet he managed to reach shelter.
There is a story that, in an attack during one of his absences,
the Indians forced the outer gate of the fort and Mrs. Robertson
went out of her cabin, firing, and let loose a band of the savage
dogs which the settlers kept for their protection, and so drove
out the invaders.
The Chickasaws were loyal to the treaty they had made with the
British in the early days of James Adair's association with them.
They were friends to England's friends and foes to her foes.
While they resented the new settlements made on land they
considered theirs, they signed a peace with Robertson at the
conclusion of the War of Independence. They kept their word with
him as they had kept it with the British. Furthermore, their
chief, Opimingo or the Mountain Leader, gave Robertson his
assistance against the Creeks and the Choctaws and, in so far as
he understood its workings, informed him of the new Spanish and
French conspiracy, which we now come to consider.
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