allso.

I need not say how content I am to be associated with the
man moast of all my acquaintance apt to achieve Success in
an undertaking of so difficult and perlous nature. As you
know, it is in the wilderness men are moast sevearly tried,
and there we know a man. I have seen you so tried, and I
Know what you are. I am proud that you apeare to hold me and
my own qualities in like confident trust and belief, and I
shall hope to merit no alteration in your Judgment.

There is no other man I would go with on such an
undertaking, nor consider it seriously, although the concern
of my family largely has been with things military and
adventurous, and we are not new to life among Savidges. Too
well I know the dangers of bad leadership in such affairs,
yes and my brother, the General, also, as the story of
Detroit and the upper Ohio country could prove. All of that
country should have been ours from the first, and only lack
of courage lost it so long to us.

You are so kind as to offer me a place equal in command with
you--I accept not because of the Rank, which is no moving
consideration, eather for you or for me--but because I see
in the jenerosity of the man proposing such a division of
his own Honors, the best assurance of success.

You will find me at or near the Falls of the Ohio awaiting
the arrival of your party, which I taik it will be in early
August or the Midel of that month.

Pray convey to Mr. Jefferson my humble and obedient
respects, and thanks for this honor wh. I shall endeavor to
merit as best lies within my powers.

With all affec'n, I remain,

Your friend,

WM. CLARK.

P. S.--God alone knows how mutch this all may mean to You
and me, Merne--WILL.

Clark, then, was to meet him at the Falls of the Ohio, and he, too,
counseled haste. Lewis drove his drunken, lazy workmen in the
shipyards as hard as he might, week after week, yet found six weeks
elapsed before at last he was in any wise fitted to set forth. The
delay fretted him, even though he received word from his chief bidding
him not to grieve over the possible loss of a season in his start, but
to do what he might and to possess his soul in patience and in
confidence.

Recruits of proper sort for his purposes did not grow on trees, he
found, bu