There were few courts, and the justices presiding over them knew but little law. If the law proved too slow, or courts were too far away, the settlers tried criminals and inflicted the punishment. The backwoodsman was prompt to avenge a wrong. He was grim, stern, strong, easily swayed by stormy passions, and always a lover of freedom, to the core. He had suffered horrible injuries from the Indians and learned to retaliate in kind. He became cruel and relentless toward an enemy, but was loyal to the death to his friends and country. He was upright and honest. These pioneers were indeed cast in the heroic mold. Many of them fell in the struggle; but there was no time for sentiment and wailing. Over the prostrate bodies of the fallen civilization marched triumphantly westward and gave to America one of the most attractive regions, to the nation heroic soldiers, brilliant lawyers, men of science and of art, and a womanhood whose beauty and accomplishments are a byword everywhere. With the close of Indian hostilities came rapid development of the more easily accessible portions of the state. Intercourse with the East and North obliterated old habits and customs and primitive notions. The fertility of the soil created wealth and with it came comfort. With increasing prosperity came that high intellectual development so essential to a sound, moral public sentiment, respect for the law, and love of peace and order, the foundation stones of a happy social structure. Schools and churches demonstrated their all-powerful influence by the refinement and social purity of the inhabitants. The _code duello_ which had formerly been resorted to almost universally in settling personal differences, was made a crime by law and completely disappeared. In the mountains, however, development was slow. That section remained isolated and practically cut off from intercourse with the more populous and advanced portions of Kentucky and surrounding States. Only in recent years have railroads begun to spread their iron network through the mountains, tapping the almost inexhaustible coal veins, mineral deposits of various kinds, wonderful forests of timber, until now that section is become the richest in the State. Education and refinement distinguished the Blue Grass Kentuckian at an early date; he had long enjoyed the advantages of modern civilization, while his mountaineer brother yet lived in the primitive fashion of his forebears, and still remained a backwoodsman. He suffered the same privations and possessed the traits of character of the early pioneers of the Blue Grass.