He struck the Mississippi River fifty miles below St. Louis, where the United States Army post of Kaskaskia faced the Province of Louisiana across the river. Here he enlisted four men more, selected from a score that eagerly volunteered. Word of the great expedition had travelled ahead of him, and he could have filled the ranks seven times over. But only the strongest, and those of clean reputation, could qualify for such a trip. These thought themselves fortunate.
Now up along the river, by military road, hastened Captain Lewis, for the old town of Cahokia, and crossed the river to St. Louis at last. He was in a hurry.
"We'll winter at La Charette, Captain," he had said to Captain Clark, "where Daniel Boone lives. Boone can give us valuable information, and we'll be that far on our journey, ready for spring. Charette will be better for our men than St. Louis."
Glad was Captain Clark to spend the months at La Charette. Daniel Boone had been his boyhood friend in Kentucky—had taught him much wood-craft. But when, in mid-December, Captain Clark, the red-*head, anxious to push on to La Charette, seventy miles up the Missouri, before the ice closed, with York and his nine Kentuckians and five other recruits whom he had enlisted from Fort Massac at the mouth of the Ohio tied his keel-boat at the St. Louis levee, he was met by disagreeable information.
"We'll have to winter here," informed Captain Lewis. "The Spanish lieutenant-governor won't pass
