Clark's spies, sent out to Illinois a year before, undoubtedly advised him to land at Fort Massac and, gaining from there this famous highway, to pursue it to Kaskaskia. His plan of surprising the British post necessitated his pursuing unexpected courses. It was well known that the British watched the Mississippi well; therefore he chose the land route. Here, at the mouth of the Tennessee, his men brought in a canoe full of white traders who had recently been in Kaskaskia; certain of these were engaged to guide Clark thither. The party dropped down to Massac Creek, which enters the Ohio just above the site of the old fort, and in that inlet secreted their flat-boats ready to begin their intrepid march of one hundred and twenty miles across country.[2] As this little company of eight or nine score adventurers drew around their fires on Massac Creek, they little dreamed, we may be sure, of the fame they were to gain from this plucky excursion into the prairies of Illinois. It was impossible for them to lift their eyes above the commonplaces of the journey and the possibilities of the coming encounter, and see in true perspective what the capture of Illinois meant to poor Kentucky. It is not less difficult for us to turn our eyes from these general results, which were so brilliant, and get a clear insight into the commonplaces of this memorable little campaign--to hear the talk of the tired men about the fires as they cleaned the heavy clods of mud from shoes and moccasins, examined their guns, viewed the night, and then talked softly of the possibilities of the morrow, and dreamed, in the ruddy firelight, of those at home. Of all companies of famous campaigners on the Indian trails of America, this company was the smallest and the most picturesque. Clark had but little over half the force which Washington commanded at Fort Necessity in 1754. Little Massac Creek is eleven miles in length but drains seventy square miles of territory. This fact is a significant description of the nature of the northern and central portions of Massac County. From the Cache River a string of lakes extends in a southeast and then northeast direction to Big Bay River, varying in width from one to four miles; around the lakes lies a much greater area of cypress swamps and treacherous "sloughs" altogether impassable. The water of these lakes drains sometimes into the Cache and at other times into the Big Bay--depending upon the stage of water in the Ohio.[3]