It was stated that "Boone would lose no time," and "if they are alive, it is indisputable but Boone must find them." So Boone set out in company with Michael Stoner, another expert woodsman.

His general instructions were to go down the Kentucky River to Preston's Salt Lick and across country to the Falls of the Ohio, and thence home by Gaspar's Lick on the Cumberland River.

Indian war parties were moving under cover across "the Dark and Bloody Ground" to surround the various groups of surveyors still at large and to exterminate them.

Boone made his journey successfully.

He found John Floyd, who was surveying for Washington; he sped up to where Harrod and his band were building cabins and sent them out, just in time as it happened; he reached all the outposts of Thomas Bullitt's party, only one of whom fell a victim to the foe *; and, undetected by the Indians, he brought himself and Stoner home in safety, after covering eight hundred miles in sixty-one days.
* Hancock Taylor, who delayed in getting out of the country and was cut off.
Harrod and his homesteaders immediately enlisted in the army.