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Straight from Sancho's side he walked down the corral, halted behind two rangy, hard-looking steeds that showed still the effects of recent severe usage, and these he studied coolly and thoroughly a few minutes, while peering from two narrow slits in the ranch wall between the windows two sun-tanned frontiersmen as closely studied him.
It is a dramatic picture we evolve for ourselves from the meager narratives of this event a mass of painted Indians moving through the sycamores by the bright water, to come presently into a tense, immobile semicircle before the large group of armed frontiersmen seated or standing about Richard Henderson, the man with the imperial dream, the ready speaker whose flashing eyes and glowing oratory won the hearts of all who came under their sway.
He has been the companion of trappers and frontiersmen, the friend and comrade of Indians, sleeping side by side with them in their wigwams, running the rapids in their canoes, and riding with them in the hunt.
There were fourteen gaunt frontiersmen in the hospital, so weak with wounds that they could not drag themselves from their tattered blankets. They fought with rifles and pistols until forty Mexicans lay heaped dead about the doorway. The artillery brought up a field-piece; they loaded it with grape-shot and swept the room, and then at last they crossed the threshold.
The men, hardy frontiersmen, excellent riders, and skilled riflemen, were fearless and self-reliant, but discharged their duty as they liked and when they liked. On a march they wandered about at will, as they did about camp, and could be kept together only when a fight was impending. When their arms were injured by service or neglect, they threw them away, expecting to be supplied with others.
Everything was photographed on his memory and would remain there until such time as he needed the use of the picture. Then he continued his advance, at the long easy walk that he had learned from the frontiersmen, and soon his shaken nerves were restored.
It took a whole month to make this journey of six hundred and twenty miles. Patrick Henry at once fell in with Clark's plan. He arranged that the government should furnish six thousand dollars. But as it was needful that the utmost secrecy should be preserved, nothing was said about the matter to the Virginia Assembly. Clark was to raise his own company among the frontiersmen.
Gist, the intrepid pioneer, who had explored the Ohio in the employ of the company, and whom he engaged to accompany and pilot him in the present expedition. He secured the services also of one John Davidson as Indian interpreter, and of four frontiersmen, two of whom were Indian traders.
The decade opening with the year 1765 is the epoch of bold and ever bolder exploration the more adventurous frontiersmen of the border pushing deep into the wilderness in search of game, lured on by the excitements of the chase and the profit to be derived from the sale of peltries.
They were typical frontiersmen, hospitable and generous to a degree. We had asked at several farm houses for accommodations for the night, but there was so much travel that all were full and running over. Our party consisted of six, the Driskols, Smiths, Ben Allen and myself. Trudging through the mud, all were tired and hungry.
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