They, therefore, pointed their guns at him in a menacing way, and suggested that the best plan for him to induce them not to pull the triggers was to descend immediately.
"I don't see as there is any help for it," was the reply of the pioneer, "but, as I have started to shift this tobacco, I hope you'll wait a few minutes till I can shift it. Just watch the way I do it."
The four warriors were unsuspicious, and, standing directly under the mass of dry pungent stuff, they looked up at the pioneer as he began moving the rails. He continued talking to his old acquaintances, as though they were valued friends, who had just dropped in for a chat, and they turned their black eyes curiously upon him, with no thought of the little stratagem he was arranging with such care and skill.
By and by Boone got a large pile of the tobacco in position directly over their heads, and then suddenly drew the rails apart, so as to allow it to fall.
At the same instant, with his arms full of the suffocating weed, he sprang among them and dashed it into their faces. Distributing it as impartially as he could, in the few seconds he allowed himself, he dashed out of the shed and ran for his house, where he could seize his rifle, and defend himself against twice the number.
Great as was his danger, he could not help stopping, when he had run most of the distance, and looking back to see how his visitors were making out.
The sight was a curious one. The eyes of the four warriors were full of the smarting dust, and they were groping about, unable to see, and resembling a party engaged in blind-man's buff. These warriors were able to speak English quite well, and they used some very emphatic expressions in the efforts to put their feelings into words. If they expected to find Boone in these aimless gropings they were mistaken, for he reached his cabin, where he was safe from them, had they been in the full possession of their faculties.
When the Shawanoes had managed to free their eyes to some extent from the biting, pungent dust, they moved off into the woods and made no more calls upon the pioneer.
Emigration to Kentucky increased, and new settlements were continually forming. Strong, sturdy settlers erected their cabins in every quarter, and the forests were rapidly cleared. Livestock increased in numbers, and naturally a brisk trade sprang up in many commodities. Trains of pack-horses carried goods from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, where they were taken down the Ohio in flat-boats and distributed among the various settlements.
As the expression goes, in these later days, everything was "booming" in Kentucky during those years, and the Territory made immense strides in material wealth and prosperity. Most of the immigrants came from North Carolina and Virginia, and they were hospitable, enterprising, vigorous and strongly attached to each other.