"Peleg," he said the following day, when the two were labouring in the field together, "Blue Licks somehow seems to be destined to be a place of trouble and sorrow for me. Only a few days ago my brother was calling my attention to that fact and now his death has confirmed his words. It grieves me that I could not even bring away his body. That, however, is a part of the fortune of pioneers, and as no man ever yet has heard me whine, I do not intend to begin now. But my brother's death is a source of very heavy sorrow to me."
"Do you think the Indians are planning another attack?"
"Not right away. I suspect that they are trying to attack or capture me. Their anger against the settlement doubtless is as keen as ever, but they look upon me as one who has deserted their tribe. Some day they will find me. But I have one consolation, and that is that they will not find me unprepared."
The words of the scout concerning the further attacks by the Indians were confirmed during the year that followed. The little settlement at Boonesborough steadily increased in numbers and prosperity. For a time, free from the attacks of the Indians, the families toiled in their fields. More extensive clearings were made and in the marvellously fertile soil the crops were bountiful. There were many new homes established in the community, too, for among the continually arriving settlers were many young women.
In the quiet labours on his clearing Boone found peace and comfort such as he seldom had enjoyed. Peleg, who had secured some land adjoining the farm of his friend, worked with the scout and Israel, and as they assisted one another both places steadily improved.
The feeling of Boone, however, that he was still an object of hatred among the Shawnees was confirmed repeatedly. His most critical experience came one day when, all unknown to the scout, four athletic Shawnees were detailed by Blackfish to approach the settlement without arousing any suspicions of their presence, watch the movements of the scout, and either bring him back to the tribe or bring his scalp.
On his farm the scout had erected, not far from his cabin, a little house in which he dried the tobacco he cultivated. The little building stood in the midst of his tobacco patch. Within the house there were three tiers of timber from which the tobacco leaves were hanging to dry.
Boone and Peleg were busily engaged here one autumn day, almost unmindful of peril, the younger scout believing that the fears of his friend were without foundation.
"The tobacco on this lower tier," said Boone after he had made a careful investigation, "seems to be entirely dry."