Yet it must be confessed that he had now ceased to be a real leader in the affairs of Kentucky. A kindly, simple-hearted, modest, silent man, he had lived so long by himself alone in the woods that he was ill fitted to cope with the horde of speculators and other self-seekers who were now despoiling the old hunting-grounds to which Finley had piloted him only fifteen years before. Of great use to the frontier settlements as explorer, hunter, pilot, land-seeker, surveyor, Indian fighter, and sheriff--and, indeed, as magistrate and legislator so long as Kentucky was a community of riflemen--he had small capacity for the economic and political sides of commonwealth-building. For this reason we find him hereafter, although still in middle life, taking but slight part in the making of Kentucky; none the less did his career continue to be adventurous, picturesque, and in a measure typical of the rapidly expanding West. Probably in the early spring of 1786 Boone left the neighborhood of the Kentucky River, and for some three years dwelt at Maysville (Limestone), still the chief gateway to Kentucky for the crowds of immigrants who came by water. He was there a tavern-keeper--probably Mrs. Boone was the actual hostess--and small river merchant. He still frequently worked at surveying, of course hunted and trapped as of old, and traded up and down the Ohio River between Maysville and Point Pleasant--the last-named occupation a far from peaceful one, for in those troublous times navigation of the Ohio was akin to running the gauntlet; savages haunted the banks, and by dint of both strategy and open attack wrought a heavy mortality among luckless travelers and tradesmen. The goods which he bartered to the Kentuckians for furs, skins, and ginseng were obtained in Maryland, whither he and his sons went with laden pack-animals, often driving before them loose horses for sale in the Eastern markets. Sometimes they followed some familiar mountain road, at others struck out over new paths, for no longer was the Wilderness Road the only overland highway to the West. Kentucky was now pursuing a path strewn with thorns. Northward, the British still held the military posts on the upper lakes, owing to the non-fulfilment of certain stipulations in the treaty of peace. Between these and the settlements south of the Ohio lay a wide area populated by powerful and hostile tribes of Indians, late allies of the British, deadly enemies of Kentucky, and still aided and abetted by military agents of the king. To the South, Spain controlled the Mississippi, the commercial highway of the West; jealous of American growth, she harshly denied to Kentuckians the freedom of the river, and was accused of turning against them and their neighbors of Tennessee the fierce warriors of the Creek and Cherokee tribes. On their part, the Kentuckians looked with hungry eyes upon the rich lands held by Spain.