nd it had been
held ever since, Boon still playing the greatest part in the defence.
Clark's more far-seeing and ambitious soul now prompted him to try and
use it as a base from which to conquer the vast region northwest of the
Ohio.

The Country beyond the Ohio.

The country beyond the Ohio was not, like Kentucky, a tenantless and
debatable hunting-ground. It was the seat of powerful and warlike Indian
confederacies, and of clusters of ancient French hamlets which had been
founded generations before the Kentucky pioneers were born; and it also
contained posts that were garrisoned and held by the soldiers of the
British king. Virginia, and other colonies as well, made, it is true,
vague claims to some of this territory. [Footnote: Some of the numerous
land speculation companies, which were so prominent about this time,
both before and after the Revolution, made claims to vast tracts of
territory in this region, having bought them for various trinkets from
the Indian chiefs. Such were the "Illinois Land Company" and "Wabash
Land Company," that, in 1773 and 1775, made purchases from the
Kaskaskias and Piankeshaws. The companies were composed of British,
American, and Canadian merchants and traders, of London, Philadelphia,
Baltimore, Quebec, etc. Lord Dunmore was in the Wabash Company. The
agents of the companies, in after years, made repeated but unsuccessful
efforts to get Congress to confirm their grants. Although these various
companies made much noise at the time, they introduced no new settlers
into the land, and, in fact, did nothing of lasting effect; so that it
is mere waste of time to allude to most of them. See, however, the
"History of Indiana," by John B. Dillon (Indianapolis, 1859), pp.
102-109, etc.] But their titles were as unreal and shadowy as those
acquired by the Spanish and Portuguese kings when the Pope, with empty
munificence, divided between them the Eastern and the Western
hemispheres. For a century the French had held adverse possession; for a
decade and a half the British, not the colonial authorities, had acted
as their unchallenged heirs; to the Americans the country was as much a
foreign land as was Canada. It could only be acquired by force, and
Clark's teeming brain and bold heart had long been busy in planning its
conquest. He knew that the French villages, the only settlements in the
land, were the seats of the British power, the head-quarters whence
their commanders stirred up, arm