Young Gentry was first aroused. He sprang up and found a gang of lawless negroes on deck, evidently looking for plunder, and thinking so many of them could easily cow or handle the two white men. "Bring the guns, Abe!" shouted Allen. "Shoot them!" Abraham Lincoln was among them, brandishing a club--they had no guns. The negroes were frightened not only by the fierce, commanding form of their tall adversary, but also by his giant strength. The two white men routed the whole black crew, but Abraham Lincoln received a wound in the encounter, and bore the scar of it to his dying day. The trip required about three months, going and returning, and the two adventurers from Gentryville came back in June, with good stories of their experiences to tell in Jones' store. Not long after this Thomas Lincoln, in response to an urgent invitation from John Hanks, decided to move to Illinois. It took a long time, after gathering in the fall crops, for Thomas Lincoln to have a "vandoo" and sell his corn and hogs. As for selling his farm, it had never really belonged to him. He simply turned it over to Mr. Gentry, who held a mortgage on it. It was February, 1830, before the pioneer wagon got under way. The emigrant family consisted of Thomas Lincoln and Sarah, his wife, Abraham, and John Johnston; Sarah and Matilda Johnston were both married, and, with their husbands, a young man named Hall and Dennis Hanks, formed the rest of the party. The women rode with their household goods in a great covered cart drawn by two yoke of oxen. A TRAVELING PEDDLER Merchant Jones, for whom Abe had worked that fall and winter, after his return from New Orleans, sold the young man a pack of "notions" to peddle along the road to Illinois. "A set of knives and forks," related Mr. Jones' son afterward, "was the largest item on the bill. The other items were needles, pins, thread, buttons, and other little domestic necessities. When the Lincolns reached their new home, Abraham wrote back to my father stating that he had doubled his money on his purchases by selling them along the road. Unfortunately we did not keep that letter, not thinking how highly we would prize it afterward." In the early days of his presidency, an international problem came before the cabinet which reminded Mr. Lincoln of an experience he had on this journey, so he told the several secretaries this story: "The situation just now reminds me of a fix I got into some thirty years ago when I was peddling 'notions' on the way from Indiana to Illinois. I didn't have a large stock, but I charged large prices and I made money. Perhaps you don't see what I am driving at.