ck for remains of the mammoth, and might not mammoths be stalking abroad in all that great land of the West? Mystery, mystery,—the very air was filled with mystery.
III
RECRUITING FOR OREGON
"Now that I have accepted President Jefferson's proposal to be associated with Captain Lewis in this expedition, it will oblige me to accept brother Jonathan's offer of ten thousand dollars cash for Mulberry Hill," William Clark was saying at Louisville. "That will help out brother George on his military debts, satisfy his claimants, and save him from ruin."
At the time of sale the old home was occupied by General Clark and William Clark, and their sister Fanny and her children. The departure of William for the Pacific broke up and dispersed the happy family.
The General went back to the Point of Rock, fifty feet above the dashing Ohio. That water was the lowest ever known now, men could walk across on the rocks. Three or four locust trees shaded the cabin, now painted white, and an orchard of peach and cherry blossomed below. Negro Ben and his wife Venus, and Carson and Cupid, lived back of the house and cultivated a few acres of grain and garden.
All of Clark's old soldiers remained loyal and visited the Point of Rock, and every year an encampment of braves, Indian chiefs whom he had subdued, came for advice and to partake of his hospitality.
Grand and lonely, prematurely aged at fifty-one when he should have been in his prime, General Clark sat overlooking the Falls when Captain Lewis pulled his bateaux into the Bear Grass.
Captain Clark and nine young men of Kentucky were waiting for the boat,—William Bratton, a blacksmith,
