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George Rogers Olark-^s^ Story of a Young Man Who Went - * . - West For Uncle Sam The great French and Indian War ended in 1763. Its result was to break the French power in America for all time and to make English ter ritory of the region between the Alle ghanies and the Mississippi. At that time the war between the Colonies and the British Government was sti'il a dozen years in the future. The colonists —especially the Virgin ians—at once planned to settle and occupy the conquered region, w r hich was then known as the Ohio country. Companies were organized to go into the new region and occupy it, settling there with their families, clearing away the forests, opening farms and making homes for themselves in the wilderness. N But these pioneers were compara tively few, and the difficulties they encountered were very great. There were no roads anywhere, no bridges across creeks and no secure means of communication except by way of the rivers. In the main, therefore, they settled upon the river banks, leaving the vast interior country to the occu pation of the powerful Indian tribes, who viewed all white settlement with jealousy and hatred. Meanwhile south of the Ohio a con siderable number of adventurous Vir ginians and Carolinians had crossed the mountains and made little settle ments in what we now call Kentucky and Tennessee. These included a num ber of wandering hunters, like Daniel Boone, Simon Kenton and George Rogers Clark, whom the Indians called the “Long Knives,’' because they always carried their hunting knives in their belts. Sometimes two or three families settled near each other; sometimes each family was far removed from each other, and depended solely upon Its own members for the means of subsistence and for defense against the Indian foe. This sparsely settled Kentucky country constituted a county of Vir ginia. When the Revolutionary War broke out the thirteen colonies lay east of the Alleghanies. They had no secure hold upon the great rich region west of the mountains and north of the Ohio River. That was held by the British, with headquarters at Detroit, to which place a capable but very cruel and unscrupulous man named Hamilton was sent as British com mander of all that region, to hold it securely. There were a number of French towns and settlements in the region north of the Ohio, and their inhabit ants had submitted themselves to the .British power ki America. The •French settlers in this country were always loyal to the dominant power, whatever it might happen to be, their sole concern being to preserve and profit by their trade with the Indians. For the rest, the region was occupied by fierce tribes and confederacies of Indians, who looked with jealous fear upon the American advance across the mountains. * t During the Revolutionary War Hamilton availed himself of this In dian jealousy and hatred as a means •of striking the Americans in the reai\ Disregarding all considerations of civilization and humanity, he set his agents to stir the Indians up to a sav age warfare that should “drive back the settlements over the mountains.” Under inspiration of these agents, who actually paid bounties to the In dians for such American scalps as they should bring in to the British posts, the savages made war alike upon men, women and children. It was then that George Rogers Clark saw' clearly what nobody else bad seen at all. He saw that although the colonists might hold their own against Indian attacks during the war, and might ultimately win in their struggle for independence, the possession of all that northwestern country by the British, who already held Canada on the north, would shut the young re public in and forever forbid the pos sibility of its natural expansion west ward. A thought of imperial proportions was born in the mind of George Rog ers Clark, the backwoodsman, who was only twenty-five years old, and who had lived from boyhood in the wilderness. His thought was this: "Why not conquer all that region now, while its conquest is possible? Why not make it now and forever a possession of the young republic to which of right it ought to belong?” Full of this idea Clark set out to travel on foot from Kentucky to Vir ginia, in order to secure the men and the means with which to accomplish his great purpose. This journey was made in the autumn/ f 1777. But George Rogers Clark was always reckless of danger on his own account, he was never reckless of the results of his undertakings. He understood fully that an enter prise ending in failure was immeas urably worse than no enterprise at all. He undertook nothing until be had carefully studied the conditions of the problem and satisfied himself of his ability to solve it. Accordingly before setting out for Virginia Clark sent two or three of his friends among the young men of Kentucky to find out and report to him all the facts bearing upon the situation. Cautious, prudent, secre tive man that he was, he did not give to these agents the smallest intima tion of the plans that were forming In his mind. They reported ;hat although the French in all the forts were loyal to the British their loyalty was indiffer ent —passive rather than active. They wanted peace and good trade condi tions, and they did not actively care for anything else. Clark judged that by a due exer cise of force and diplomacy he might be able to keep the French neutral, or, possibly, in case his attempt should be successful, might even win them to his own cause. As for the British and Indians, he was confident of his ability to deal with them if only he could secure official permis sion and men enough. Accordingly he set cut for Virginia and after a painful and very danger ous journey laid his plans before Pat rick Hen it, w’ho was then Governor of Virginia. He explained the im portance of the mission he was about to undertake, and the lasting effect its success must have upon the future fortunes of the republic which was struggling desperately for independ ence. The British were closely pressing the Americans at that. time, and no troops could be spared to aid in this enterprise. But Patrick Henry gave Clark permission to enlist lour com panies of volunteers, of fifty men each, for the expedition. This had to be done secretly. Even the men enlisted must not know upon what service they were intended to go. For if Hamilton, at Detroit, should suspect Clark’s purpose, he might easily and certainly defeat it by throwing re-enforcements into the posts likely to be attacked. With some difficulty Clark man aged to raise his four companies, al though not one of them had its full force of fifty men. In all, he secured considerably less than 200 men for an enterprise for which 1000 would not have been an excessive number. There were three French towns in the region to be conquered, which constituted the principal British posts and the possession of which practi cally determined the control of the entire territory. One of them was Kaskaskia, in Illinois, not far from the Mississippi, about thirty miles or so below the Spanish town of St. Louis. Another was Cahokia, which Jay just across the Mississippi River from St. Louis. The third, and most important, was Vincennes, on the Wabash, in what is now Indiana. Clark decided to assail Kaskaskia and Cahokia first, although those towns lay 200 or 300 miles further west than Vincennes. Accordingly, he embarked his little force of fighting men on flatboats and went down the Ohio River to an island near the mouth of the Tennessee. There he landed and hid his boats, and there he was joined by a little company of Tennessee hunters who had recently visited the towns he purposed to assail. From them he learned that at Kaskaskia the fort was strong, the militia was drilled and well armed, with Indian allies all about, and that the force which would oppose his attack was much larger than his own. But George Rogers Clark faltered not nor failed. Knowing himself to be outnumbered by the enemy, he saw clearly that his only hope of suc cess lay in effecting a surprise. He therefore decided —instead of going up the Mississippi in boats and thus inviting discovery—to march secretly through the woods and swamps and fall upon Kaskaskia unexpectedly. On the night of July 4 Clark, whose approach had not been sus pected, quietly slipped into Kaskas kia. He quickly disposed his men so as to prevent the assembling of the militia. He ordered all the French people to betake themselves to their homes and to stay there on pain of instant death. These French people had heard terrible stories of the cruelty and bru tality of the Kentucky Long Knives, so they obeyed the command, glad of even a chance to escape with their lives. The commandmant of the place, a Frenchman named Rocheblave, who was devoted to the English cause, was holding a dance in the fort at the time, with not a hint or a suspi cion that a force of Long Knives was approaching the town he was set to guard. Thus even the fort itself was without a sentinel on duty, and the evening was given up to merrymak ing. Having posted his men in such fashion as to forbid the firing of an alarm or the mustering of the defen sive force, Clark slipped into the fort and stood in the doorway of the danc ing hall looking on at the dance. Sud denly an Indian who had seen him before recognized him and gave the alarm. Instantly confusion seized upon the assemblage, but Clark quietly bade the people go on with the dance, adding: “But remember, you now dance under Virginia, not under Great Britain” 1 His mastery of the situation was already complete, % and he promptly made the most of it. The terrible reputation the Long Knives had among the French served Clark well. These people not only made no resist ance to their conqueror, but they of fered to become slaves if he would spare their lives. Their terror was all compelling. Then Clark assumed a magnani mous role. He told them that the American Republic was engaged, not in enslaving men, but in setting them free. He said that such of the people of Kaskaskia as would swear alle giance to the United States should immediately have all the rights of American citizenship. To a Catholic priest who asked If he might holtl service in his church Clark replied that he had nothing to do w'ith any church except to protect it, and that under the United States all religions were equally free. The priest at once espoused the American cause, swore allegiance to it, and made his parishioners do the like. His name was Pierre Gibault, and he became at once an intensely loyal American. The commandant, Rocheblave, ob stinately refused to accept Clark’s terms. When Clark, meaning to be friendly, asked him to dinner, he sent an insulting note in reply, and Clark, who knew how to be severe as well as how to be gentle, arrested the man and sent him to Virginia as a pris oner. One thing that helped Clark in all these proceedings was the fact that an alliance had been formed between France and the United States. Fickle as they w r ere, the French in America still held a sentimental allegiance to their home government, and, upon learning that France had espoused the cause of the Americans against the British, they were eagerly ready to become Americans, particularly when and where the American power seemed to be dominant. Some of them joined Clark as mili tiamen, and he sent a force to take possession of Cahokia, which was ac complished without difficulty. Then the Americanized French priest, Pierre Gibault, volunteered to go to Vincennes and win the people there to the American cause. He was completely successful. But by that time Hamilton, the British commandant at Detroit, learned what was going on. He in stantly organized a force of British, French and Indians to march upon Vincennes and re-establish British supremacy there. It required a con siderable time for Hamilton to ac complish that purpose, but after a few months he achieved it, and Vin cennes became again a strong British post. This left Clark in a very perilous position. He was in control of a half hostile population, which had indeed sworn allegiance to America, but which, as he very well knew, was ready to change its allegiance upon any plausible pretext. He was sur rounded by hostile Indians, fully armed and fully fed by the British, and fully ready to do the British bid ding. His only military base lay at Pittsburg—hundreds of miles to the east—and Vincennes, with its strong garrison, lay immediately between him and that base. It was Hamilton’s purpose, of course, to assail Clark and conquer him, thus recovering Kaskaskia and Cahokia' to the British power. But he decided to rest for the win ter. Clark saw liis opportunity, and although the term of his men’s en listments had run out, he persuaded them to begin a march against Vin cennes. It was a terrible ordeal. Food was scarce and there were no tents nor blankets. The army had to wade through icj^streams, gun over head. At last, however, they arrived at the fort. Clark’s rifles prevailed against the defenses after a day and a night of fighting. Hamilton and his men "were made prisoners. Clark paroled the greater part of them, but he sent Hamilton and twenty-five others as prisoners of war to Virginia. George Rogers Clark was now mas ter of the Northwest, and by virtue of his extraordinary conquest of that region Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michi gan and Wisconsin are to-day great States in the American Union instead of being—as they otherwise must have been provinces of British America. —Youth’s Companion. \M^uriousJM In 1907 72,500 barrels of apples were imported direct from the United States and Canada to Manchester. 49fe Mount CamertfrQfla the west coast of Africa, long extinct volcano, was found to be still alive and in danger of eruption by a party of German explorers recently. At Yale University there is a skull of a prehistoric animal which meas ures nine feet long and six feet broad. Many doctors say that lawn tennis is the most healthful form of recrea tion. From time out of mind certain de votees of Japan have visited a cele brated temple at Narita twice a year to perform the pious act of fasting ■within its sacred precincts. Municipal pawnshops have been opened in Pekin for the relief of the residents who have been hereto fore the victims of extortionate pri vate establishments. The city charges are fifteen per cent., while they have been paying fifty. The Great Lakes rank next to the Atlantic Coast in the quantity and value of coal consumed in steam pro pulsion. Out of 11,300,000 tons loaded on vessels for bunker pur poses in 1907 these waters alone are credited with twenty-five per cent, of the total coal tonnage required. SPLENDID BARRACKS OF THE PORTO RICO REGIMENT NEAR MQRRO CASTLE, SAN JUAN, P. R. J -r ■> -"■STSrTf fg, j i uififj-frri r. —From Leslie’s Weekly. THE NEEDLE-EAGLE. And How It Pounces Upon the Poor Baa-Baa. This is quite a startling exhibition on account of the lifelike qualities of the eagle, which really soars into mid air up the mountain crag after the defenseless sheep. The eagle may reach its prey or hover about it in the air in an unsuc cessful attempt as long as the youth ful operator wishes. |<^i SiSP I How It Looks to the Audience. A small toy theatre stage presents the best setting for the trick, al though it can be done on an ordinary table, but with the stage setting by far the best effects may be obtained. You can easily fashion a set of mountain scenery by cutting out mountains from colored pictures in old magazines and setting them up either in the slits of the stage or on small wooden stand mounts if you have no toy theatre. Two “wings” of mountain scenery will be enough that is, the front w r ing w'hich is the mountain side in the foreground, and the other “wing” made up of the hills in the oack ground as shown in the picture. Now cut out a very small picture of a sheep and paste it on the “wing” in the foreground at poiut A. Now cut out a small eagle from fine tissue paper. A small sewing i ‘' hi How It Looks to You. needle should be procured. Thread it with a piece of fine thread about a foot in length and run it lengthwise through the body of the paper eagle. The most important thing of all to secure is a very strong magnet. You place the theatre or table in such a way as to enable you to stand direct ly behind the stage, where you can use both hands at the same time. Take the magnet in your right hand and place it at the point marked A behind the mountain and out of sight of the audience. The needle-eagle starts to fly to ward the invisible magnet. You in stantly check its flight by pulling backward on the thread, the erid of which you have grasped in your left hand. Now you gradually move the invis ible magnet upward in the direction indicated by the dotted lines. The astonished audience sees the eagle slowly fly up the mountain side. This seeming miracle is easily accom plished by holding the thread erid so that the attracted needle-eagle will be just far enough away to gat the full strength of the hidden magnet’s attraction without quite being able to touch it, and as the magnet is raised upward behind the mountain the eagle naturally arises with it. The audience sees only the eagle, and, of course, is greatly mystified. If your hand is steady you may di rect the eagle’s flight at will, being careful to always keep the magnet out of sight behind the scenes.— Philadelphia Record. Vessels move faster through deep water with the same amount of power. HINDOO NAUTCH GIRLS AND MUSICIANS. V- ■—— ■ —■■ .... Convenience in Postage. Reduction of postage between the United States and Great Britain from five cents to two cents per letter of first ounce or less, took effect October 1. The convenience and economy to the people of this change is manifest to all who will be affected by it. Those who only occasionally send let ters to England or Ireland are re lieved of the doubt of the number and denomination of stamps to be used. We can now stamp our letters for England and Ireland with the usual two-cent stamp, same as to Canada. At the New York Postoffice, first day of the reduction, the increase of mail for England and Ireland was so great that tw r enty extra clerks were detailed at the foreign branch. It is estimated that 75,000 letters for England and Ireland were mailed during the day. Already there is an immense increase in the circular business. The increase in business will soon be found to largely make up for the decrease in price.—Cincinnati Inquirer. A Good Trick. Draw a big U on cardboard or stiff paper and then, with a sharp knife or scissors, cut it out. Laying it on the table, ask who can, in two cuts, divide it into seven pieces. ' That seems a difficult thing to do, doesn’t it? But it is quite easy. The picture shows how you may do it. First cut across from 1 to 2, which will divide it into three pieces. Then place the pieces side by side, and one cut where you see the dotted line will give you seven pieces.—Good Literature. Trance Makes Girl Taller. The case of Clara Konter, the eigh teen-year-old girl who became un conscious recently, is growing more peculiar. The father of the girl said his daughter had # grown fully two inches taller in the past three days, and every dress she has worn is too small for her. “The girl is now perfectly ration al,” said Dr. C. P. Kerr, w r ho exam ined her. He advised the parents that the girl should not be spoken to on the subject, and even the county detectives, who have been prying into the case, were forbidden to question her. Pittsburg Telegram to the Philadelphia Record. A Slight Mistake. Young Hopeful “Mummy, have gooseberries got legs?” Mother—“No, dear.” Young Hopeful—“Then I’ve swal lowed a caterpillar.”—The Tatler. In Paris last year 4 9,298 horses were killed for food, which was 5 000 more than the previous year. These animals yielded 26,600,000 pounds of meat. .'SOPHIA ‘Wthesen^^^^ HEALTH VERY POOft?® RESTORED BY PE-RU-Na, Catarrh Twenty-five Years- Had a Bad Court writes: S ° Phia KitUes '. Evanston, ‘ “I have been troubled with raHm-i , neatly twenty-five years an,l &! many cures tor tt, but obtained Jg ■Then inv brother advised me to Peruna, and T did. 0 tr ? “My health was very poor at n,.r I began taking Peruna. My “throat ? very sore and I had a had cough as “Peruna has cured me. catarrh is gone and my Health hvnl m u ch i mpro red . e, l/ “I recommend Peruna to all j who are troubled as I was ” y fnends PERUNA TABLETS I—Some neonlun fer tablets rather than medicine in a £i form. Such people can obtain Peruna 1 1 lets which represent the medicinal ini dients of Peruna Lach tablet equals one average dose of Peruna. Man-a-lin the Ideal Laxative. Ask your Druggist for a Free Pel runa Almanac for 11)09. A man isn’t necessarily n nslieT. man just because he is a' liar. H ! C^ 9 ’ apndin ® C™* Women’s Monthly Pams, Backache, Nervoujnw end Headache. It’s Liquid. Effects diately. Prescribed by physicians with W results. 10c.. 25c., and 50c.. at drug Jr* Not a Safe Place. Old Aunt Hepsy Garslde never had Been a moving picture show before. She gazed in speechless wonder at the magic contrivance by which mes senger boys were niade to move with breakneck speed, barbers to shave their customers in less than a min ute and heavy policemen to dash along the street at a rate never at tained by a living specimen, either on or off duty. It w’as all real to her. She mli not doubt the evidence of her senses. All those things were taking placa exactly as depicted. Presently an automobile came in sight in the far background, moving directly toward the audience at tin rate of at least a mile a minute. Just as a catastrophe seemed inevitable it swerved aside, passed on and dis appeared. Aunt Hepsy cculd not stand it no longer. Hastily grasping the hand of her little niece she rose and started swiftly for the door. “Come alcng, Minervy!” she said. “It ain’t safe to stay here any longer: That thing didn’t miss me more than two feet!” —Youth’s Companion. OBLIGING. Mrs. Chinnon— “Tell Mario I want her to come up and take my ha ir dow r n.” Rose (the new r maid) —“Can’t * take it dowm to her, ma’am?"—Har per’s Bazar. LIVING ADVERTLSEME NT. Glow of Health Speaks For Postum. It requires no scientific trainin, to discover whether coffee disagrees ei not A iicfl Simply stop it for a time and - in place of It, then note beneficial effects. The truth pear. “Six years ago 1 was in a ' e r> condition,” writes a Tenn. lady, suffered from indigestion, ness and insomnia. m “I w f as then an inflate < drinker, but it was long before c Cjl be persuaded that it was COifee . JVO I hurt me. Finally I decided to It off a few days and find on trUth * - r i.ft off coffee “The first morning I left on <- I had a raging headache, so I L I must have something to ta place of coffee.” (The headac caused by the reaction of the drug—caffeine). ~r nUz !i “Having heard of Postum tb a friend who used it, I bought a { age and tried It. I did not * a kß first, but after I learned ho" 0 o3 it right, according to directions pkg., I would not change back fee for anything. t lin 1 “When I began to use cos weighed only 117 lbs. an y 170, and as I have not lbu ie tonic In that time I can on ‘ / heU 5e my recovery of good health to of Postum in place of coffee. a nd. “My husband says I am a I glad ▼•rtlsement for Postum- 1 1 to be the means of inducing m. friends to use Postum. too. Name given by Postum ( ’_ t 0 Creek, Mich. Read ‘‘The . v o e a* Wellville,” in pkgs. “There s * son.” - ? A Ever read the above m r new one appears from Gnu j )U , They are genuine, true ami i-• man interest*