spectacle, here presented, of officers inveigling soldiers forward, is one of the most singular in the history of the West. We may well believe Clark refers particularly to the two French companies which composed a most important arm of his force--the Virginians, perhaps, not needing equal inspiration to endeavor. The climax in Clark's diplomacy was reached as he now approached the flood-tides of the raging Little Wabash. It is necessary here to emphasize that the army, turning eastward just north of present Nashville, abandoned the watershed to which their path had thus far held; the route now was nearly due east, across the tributaries of the Little Wabash. Of these, Petit Fork (Adams tributary of the Skillet) was the first to be encountered; it was passed with great heroism on the tenth of February. On the eleventh the eastward route was followed and the Saline River (Skillet Creek) was crossed. Bowman's record reads: "11th. Crossed the Saline river. Nothing extraordinary this day." The route between the Skillet and Little Wabash may have been either one of the two courses mentioned, not over five miles apart, and running parallel to each other. The northern passed through the southern portion of Clay County, the southern through the northern portion of Wayne. There were two encampments between the Petit Fork and the Little Wabash; if the northern route was pursued, these camps were near Xenia and Clay City in Wayne County; if the southern route was followed, the camps were near Blue Point and Mount Erie in Wayne County. Bowman's record for the twelfth is: "12th. Marched across Cot plains;[35] saw and killed numbers of buffaloes. The road very bad from the immense quantity of rain that had fallen. The men much fatigued. Encamped on the edge of the woods. This plain or meadow being fifteen or more miles across, it was late in the night before the baggage and troops got together. Now twenty-[forty-] one miles from St. Vincent. 13th. Arrived early at the two Wabashes. Although a league asunder, they now made but one. We set to making a canoe." Clark's records of the arrival at the Little Wabash read (from his _Memoir_): "This place is called the two Little Wabashes; they are three miles apart and from the Heights of the one to that of the other on the opposite shores is five miles the whole under water gen^{ly} about three feet Deep never under two and frequently four;" (from _Letter to Mason_) "Arriving at the two Little Wabashes, although three miles asunder--they now make but one--the flowed water between them being at least three feet deep and in many places four. Being near five miles to the opposite hills, the shallowest place, except about one hundred yards, was three feet." So far as these records go, either the Clay or the Wayne County route might have been that pursued. The long prairie of which Bowman speaks would have been, on the Clay County route, "Twelve Mile Prairie" situated between the present towns on the Baltimore and Ohio