These few villages or trading-posts, which were defended by forts, were scattered here and there at convenient places along the river courses, the three strongest forts being at Vincennes, on the Wabash, at Kaskaskia, and at Detroit. Over all the rest of the wild territory roamed hostile Indian tribes, hunting and fighting against one another as well as against the frontiersmen. Clark saw that if this region should be conquered the spreading prairies could be opened up for settlement. As the first step in carrying out his plan, he needed to secure aid from Patrick Henry, the governor of Virginia. Early in October, 1777, he started out on horseback from Harrodsburg, one of the Kentucky settlements, to ride through the forests and over the mountains to Williamsburg, then the capital of the State. So urgent was his haste that he stopped on the way but a single day at his father's house, the home of his childhood, and then pressed on to Williamsburg. It took a whole month to make this journey of six hundred and twenty miles. Patrick Henry at once fell in with Clark's plan. He arranged that the government should furnish six thousand dollars. But as it was needful that the utmost secrecy should be preserved, nothing was said about the matter to the Virginia Assembly. Clark was to raise his own company among the frontiersmen. The whole burden of making the necessary preparations rested upon him. CLARK STARTS ON HIS LONG JOURNEY With good heart he shouldered it, and in May, 1778, was ready with one hundred and fifty-three men to start from the Redstone Settlements, on the Monongahela River. He stopped at both Pittsburg and Wheeling for needed supplies. Then his flatboats, manned by tall backwoodsmen in their picturesque dress, rowed or floated cautiously down the Ohio River. They did not know on how great a journey they had entered, for even to his followers Clark could not tell his plan. Toward the last of the month, on reaching the falls of the Ohio, near the present site of Louisville, they landed on an island, where Clark built a fort and drilled his men. Some of the families that had come with him, and were on their way to Kentucky, remained there until autumn, planting some corn and naming the island Corn Island. When about to leave, Clark said to the men: "We are going to the Mississippi." Some were faint-hearted and wished to turn back. "You may go," said Clark, for he wanted no discontented men among his number. From those remaining he carefully picked out the ones who seemed robust enough to endure the extreme hardships which he knew awaited them. [Illustration: George Rogers Clark in the Northwest.]