his manner was cold, grave, and
taciturn; his countenance homely but kind; his conversation
unadorned, unobtrusive, and touching only upon the needful. He
never spoke of himself unless particularly questioned."

As the years passed he showed more and more the spirit which has been
described by one of his admirers in the following words:

"There never beat in man a kindlier or more philanthropic heart.
While he was a stranger to selfish and sordid impressions he was
alike above mean actions; and he lived and toiled for others, amid
hardships and sufferings that would have crushed thousands of
hearts."

The simple-hearted scout, shrewd in his dealing with the Indians, was
honest and straightforward with the men of his own race, and looked for
similar treatment from them. One can therefore imagine his surprise and
indignation when he was informed that he had no legal right to an acre
of the land which he had discovered, and into which he had led many
families that already were sharing in the steadily increasing
prosperity. The clearing he had made, the acres he had cultivated, he
was informed, were not his property now, but belonged to a man _who had
signed certain papers_!

Boone intensely loved Kentucky. Its rocks and trees, its rivers, its
forests, its very soil, were dear to his heart. In Kentucky he had
experienced his deepest sorrows and many of his highest joys. Perplexed
as well as disheartened, the great scout departed from the settlement
which in a large measure was his own work. He was homeless in a land in
which he had helped so many to secure homes for themselves.

Deep as was Boone's sorrow, he was, as we know, a man whose feeling did
not find expression in useless words. Quietly he returned to the banks
of the Delaware where he had been born, and then went on to Virginia. On
the borders of the great Kanawha he dwelt for five years in the woods
with his dogs and gun.

Meanwhile his son and a brother had gone out into the remote and almost
unknown land beyond the Mississippi River. Their reports and appeals
were so strong, that at last, when the great scout was sixty years of
age, once more accompanied by his faithful wife, he journeyed away from
civilization and went to join his sons in the faraway wilderness.

The name of the great scout was so well-known and his character was so
much admired that the Spanish Governor at once made him a present of
eighty