ds he returned to his old home, and brought the whole family
back with him to Kentucky. One would have thought he had had enough of
fighting, but he was with Wayne at the Fallen timbers and with William
Henry Harrison at the battle of the Thames. Sadly enough, the last years
of this old hero were passed in want. His land in Kentucky was taken
from him by speculators because he had failed to have it properly
registered, and he was imprisoned for debt on the spot where he had
reared the first cabin in northern Kentucky.

In the spring of 1824, an old, tattered, weather-beaten figure appeared
on the streets of Frankfort, the capital of Kentucky. So strange and
wild it was that a gang of street boys gathered and ran hooting after
it. Men laughed--till suddenly, one of them, looking again, recognized
Simon Kenton. In a moment a guard of honor was formed, and the tattered
figure was conducted to the Capitol, placed in the speaker's chair, and
for the first and only time in his life, Simon Kenton received some
portion of the respect and homage to which his deeds entitled him.

* * * * *

Boone and Kenton, with a handful of hardy and fearless pioneers, laid
the foundations of Kentucky; but in the history of the "Old Northwest,"
the country north of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi, one name
stands out transcendent; the name of a man as daring, as brave, as
resourceful as any on the border--George Rogers Clark. He was greater
than Boone or Kenton in that he had a wider vision; they saw only the
duties of the present; he saw the possibilities of the future, and his
exploits form one of the most thrilling chapters of American history.

Clark, a Virginian by birth, started out in life as a surveyor, and
early in 1775, removed to Kentucky to follow his profession. There was,
no doubt, plenty of surveying to be done there, since the whole country
was an uncharted wilderness, but the beginning of the Revolution was
accompanied by an immediate outbreak of Indian hostilities, so serious
that the very existence of the Kentucky settlements was threatened.
Soon all but two of them, Boonesborough and Harrodsburg, had to be
abandoned. Boone was, of course, in command at his fort, and Clark, who
had seen some service in Dunmore's war, became the natural leader at
Harrod's. His influence rapidly increased, and he was chosen as a
delegate to journey to Williamsburg and urge upon Virginia the needs of
the we