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, but he added a few men to his party now and then, picking them slowly, carefully. One morning, while engaged in his duties of supervising the work in progress at the shipyards, he had his attention attracted to a youth of some seventeen or eighteen years, who stood, cap in hand, at a little distance, apparently too timid to accost him.