“All right,” assented Captain Clark. “Both sides of the river are ours, but I suppose we ought to avoid trouble.” So the winter camp was placed near the mouth of Wood River, on the east bank of the Mississippi, about twenty miles above St. Louis. Log cabins were erected; and besides, the big keel-boat was decked fore and aft, and had a cabin and men’s quarters. Consequently nobody need suffer from the cold. Captain Lewis stayed most of the time in St. Louis, arranging for supplies, studying medicine, astronomy, botany and other sciences, and learning much about the Indians up the Missouri. Captain Clark looked after the camp, and drilled the men almost every day. St. Louis was then forty years old; it contained less than 200 houses, of stone and log, and about 1000 people, almost all French. The lieutenant-governor, who lived here in charge of Upper Louisiana of “the Illinois Country” (as all this section was called), was Don Carlos Dehault Delassus, also of French blood, but appointed by Spain. Indignant now was Spain, objecting to the new ownership by the United States, and asserting that by the terms of the bargain with France that government had promised not to dispose of the province to any other nation. But this evidently had made no difference to Napoleon. Not until November 30, of 1803, while Captain Lewis was on his road from Kaskaskia to St. Louis and Captain Clark was toiling with his keel-boat up from the mouth of the Ohio (both captains thinking that they had a clear way ahead), was the Spanish flag in New Orleans hauled down, and the French flag hoisted. On December 20 the representative of the French government there, Monsieur Pierre Clement Laussat, and his men, saluted the hoisting of the Stars and Stripes, formally delivered Lower and Upper Louisiana to the United States. Nevertheless, Lieutenant-Governor Delassus, of Upper Louisiana, waited for official instruction. Distances were great, he wished to receive orders what to do. In St. Louis Captain Lewis waited; in the camp at Wood River Captain Clark waited; the Missouri froze over and they could not go on anyway. Christmas was celebrated, and the memorable year 1803 merged into the new year 1804. Finally, by letter, date of January 12, 1804, from Monsieur Laussat at New Orleans, Lieutenant-Governor Delassus was notified that dispatches were on the road to Captain Amos Stoddard, of the United States Artillery, and commanding at Fort Kaskaskia, empowering him to represent France at St. Louis and take over from Spain the district of Upper Louisiana. He was then to turn it over to himself as representative of the United States. On February 25 Captain Stoddard announced that he was ready to receive Upper Louisiana in the name of France. March 9 was set as the day. Captain Lewis was invited to be present at the ceremony, as an official witness. Captain Clark probably came over; perhaps some of the men, for all the countryside gathered at the great event.