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 II

THE START

By boat up the Potomac River from Washington hastened young Captain Lewis, to pack his arms and supplies at Harper's Ferry, and forward them by wagon for Pittsburg. He got to Pittsburg ahead of them; and there remained until the last of August, overseeing the building of a barge or flat-boat. He enlisted some men, too—six of them, picked with care, and sworn into the service of the United States Army.

On August 31, with his recruits, on his laden flat-boat he launched out to sail, row, and float, towed by oxen (a "horn breeze," this was termed), down the Ohio.

At Mulberry Hill, near Louisville, Captain William Clark was impatiently awaiting. He had enlisted nine men, all of Kentucky, the "dark and bloody ground." If any men could be relied on, they would be Kentuckians, he knew. His negro servant, York, who had been his faithful body-guard since boyhood, was going, too.

Captain Clark took charge of the barge, to proceed with it and the recruits and York down the Ohio into the Mississippi, and thence up the Mississippi to St. Louis. Captain Lewis turned across country, by horse, on a short cut, to pick up more men along the way.