s of forest and trail,
Daniel Boone slipped away silently to Harrodsburg to confer with Clark;
or Clark himself, in the Indian guise that suited the wild man in him
not ill, made his way to and from the garrisons which looked to him for
everything.

Twice Clark gathered together the "guns" of Kentucky and, marching north
into the enemy's country, swept down upon the Indian towns of Piqua and
Chillicothe and razed them. In 1782, in the second of these enterprises,
his cousin, Joseph Rogers, who had been taken prisoner and adopted by
the Indians and then wore Indian garb, was shot down by one of Clark's
men. On this expedition Boone and Harrod are said to have accompanied
Clark.

The ever present terror and horror of those days, especially of the two
years preceding this expedition, are vividly suggested by the quaint
remark of an old woman who had lived through them, as recorded for us by
a traveler. The most beautiful sight she had seen in Kentucky, she said,
was a young man dying a natural death in his bed. Dead but unmarred by
hatchet or scalping knife, he was so rare and comely a picture that the
women of the post sat up all night looking at him.

But, we ask, what golden emoluments were showered by a grateful country
on the men who thus held the land through those years of want and war,
and saved an empire for the Union? What practical recognition was there
of these brave and unselfish men who daily risked their lives and faced
the stealth and cruelty lurking in the wilderness ways? There is meager
eloquence in the records. Here, for instance, is a letter from George
Rogers Clark to the Governor of Virginia, dated May 27, 1783:

"Sir. Nothing but necessity could induce me to make the following
request to Your Excellency, which is to grant me a small sum of money on
account; as I can assure you, Sir, that I am exceedingly distressed for
the want of necessary clothing etc and don't know any channel through
which I could procure any except of the Executive. The State I believe
will fall considerably in my debt. Any supplies which Your Excellency
favors me with might be deducted out of my accounts." *

* "Calendar of Virginia State Papers," vol. III, p. 487.

Clark had spent all his own substance and all else he could beg,
borrow--or appropriate--in the conquest of Illinois and the defense of
Kentucky. His only reward from Virginia was a grant of land from which
he realized nothing, and dismissal from h