In November a like terrible fate fell upon peaceful Cherry Valley, close at hand. There could be no peace or quarter until the hands of these men were stayed. [Illustration: REDUCED FACSIMILE OF THE FIRST AND LAST PARTS OF PATRICK HENRY’S LETTER OF INSTRUCTIONS TO GEORGE ROGERS CLARK] [Illustration: GEORGE ROGERS CLARK] But, though very slowly, the end came. The men who mustered in the patriotic ranks knew the forest and were masters of its warfare. They had only to turn to it in earnest to prevail. There were men upon the border, too, who needed but a little aid and countenance to work the work of pioneer statesmen on the western rivers. Most conspicuous among these was George Rogers Clark, the young Saxon giant who, in 1777, left his tasks as pioneer and surveyor on the lands which lay upon the south of the great river Ohio in far Kentucky, Virginia’s huge western county, and made his way back to the tide-water country to propose to Mr. Henry, now governor of the revolutionized commonwealth, an expedition for the conquest of the “Illinois country” which lay to the north of the river. He was but five-and-twenty, but he had got his stalwart stature where men came quickly into their powers, deep in the forests, where he had learned woodcraft and had already shown his mettle among men. Mr. Henry and Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Wythe and Mr. Madison, whom he consulted, approved his purpose very heartily. It was a thing which must be prepared for very quietly, and pushed, when once begun, with secrecy and quick despatch; but the mustering of men and the gathering of munitions and supplies were incidents which made no stir in those days of familiar war. Clark could bring together what force he pleased at Pittsburgh, and excite only the expectation that a new band of armed men were about to set out for the frontiers of Kentucky. In May, 1778, he was ready. He took but one hundred and eighty picked riflemen, a modest flotilla of small boats, and a few light pieces of artillery, but they sufficed. Before the summer was out he had gained easy mastery of the little settlements which lay to the northward upon the Mississippi and within the nearer valley of the Wabash. He had an infinitely pleasing way of winning the friendship of men upon any border, and the Frenchmen of the settlements of the Illinois country relished the change he promised them, liked well enough the prospect of being quit of the English power. There were few Englishmen to deal with.