The adventures of these explorers had a great fascination for the schoolboys of that period even as they have at the present time. The great western land of which William dreamed became known to the world principally through the journeys of these daring men. William loved to hear about every one of their wonderful experiences. The story of the Louisiana Purchase, by which most of these territories had been acquired by the United States, was a favorite, too. He liked especially to read about the day when the Louisiana Purchase had the unique experience of flying three different flags in twenty-four hours. In 1803 Spain ceded all this unexplored land to France. France sold it to the United States. So in one day the Spanish flag came down and, for form’s sake, the French flag was put up; and in turn that was lowered for the flag that has floated over the Purchase ever since, the Stars and Stripes. President Jefferson made plans at once for the exploration of the new domain, and chose as the leaders of the expedition two young Virginia college men of energy, ability, and high character. They were well fitted for the dangerous enterprise ahead. None but stout hearts could have completed the venture, of which William Wesley Van Orsdel and thousands of other boys were to hear and read many years later. Lewis was President Jefferson’s secretary and a man whom he loved much. Jefferson has left this fine appreciation of him: “Of courage undaunted, possessing a firmness and perseverance of purpose which nothing but impossibilities could divert from its direction, careful as a father of those committed to his charge, yet steady in the maintenance of order and discipline, intimate with Indian character, customs and principles, honest, disinterested, liberal, of sound understanding, and a fidelity to truth so scrupulous that whatever he should report would be as certain as if seen by ourselves.” The maps showed few cities on the Missouri River when Lewis and Clark started on their expedition. St. Louis was then forty years old; it contained less than two hundred houses and about two thousand people, nearly all of whom were French. These men who started up the Missouri in the fleet bearing the expedition, little dreamed that from the territory which they were to explore there would be carved the great states of Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon――fertile and prosperous states from which would come the necessities to strengthen nations in need in the great war more than a hundred years later. Not only wheat, sugar, and cattle, but timber, and metals to renew the world’s shipping, were to come from those western fields, forests, and mines.