ish officers, who
always travelled with sumpter mules laden with delicacies; and he was no
less struck with the laxity of discipline in all ranks. The Spanish
cavalry were armed with lances and shields; the militia carried not only
old fashioned carbines but lassos and bows and arrows. There was small
wonder that the Spanish authorities, civil, military, and ecclesiastical
alike, should wish to keep intruders out of the land, and should
jealously guard the secret of their own weakness.

His Subsequent Career.

When Pike reached home he found himself in disfavor, as was everyone who
was suspected of having any intimate relations with Wilkinson. However,
he soon cleared himself, and continued to serve in the army. He rose to
be a brigadier-general and died gloriously in the hour of triumph, when
in command of the American force which defeated the British and captured
York.

Lewis, Clark, and Pike had been the pioneers in the exploration of the
far West. The wandering trappers and traders were quick to follow in
their tracks, and to roam hither and thither exploring on their own
accord. In 1807 one of these restless adventurers reached Yellowstone
Lake, and another Lake Itasca; and their little trading stations were
built far up the Missouri and the Platte.

The West Gradually Fills with Population.

While these first rough explorations of the far West were taking place,
the old West was steadily filling with population and becoming more and
more a coherent portion of the Union. In the treaties made from time to
time with the Northwestern Indians, they ceded so much land that at last
the entire northern bank of the Ohio was in the hands of the settlers.
But the Indians still held Northwestern Ohio and the northern portions
of what are now Indiana and Illinois, so that the settlement at Detroit
was quite isolated; as were the few little stockades, or groups of
fur-traders' huts, in what are now northern Illinois and Wisconsin. The
Southern Indians also surrendered much territory, in various treaties.
Georgia got control of much of the Indian land within her State limits.
All the country between Knoxville and Nashville became part of
Tennessee, so that the eastern and middle portions of the State were no
longer sundered by a jutting fragment of wilderness, infested by Indian
war parties whenever there were hostilities with the savages. The only
Indian lands in Tennessee or Kentucky were those held by the Chickas