the complete expulsion of white men from the great interior
hunting-grounds.

Scarcely were the deputations attending this council well on
their way homewards when a courier arrived from the Illinois
country bringing startling news. The story was that a band of
three hundred rebels led by one George Rogers Clark had fallen
upon the Kaskaskia settlements, had thrown the commandant into
irons, and had exacted from the populace an oath of allegiance to
the Continental Congress. It was reported, too, that Cahokia had
been taken, and that, even as the messenger was leaving
Kaskaskia, "Gibault, a French priest, had his horse ready saddled
to go to Vincennes to receive the submission of the inhabitants
in the name of the rebels."

George Rogers Clark was a Virginian, born in the foothills of
Albemarle County three years before Braddock's defeat. His family
was not of the landed gentry, but he received some education, and
then, like Washington and many other adventuresome young men of
the day, became a surveyor. At the age of twenty-two he was a
member of Governor Dunmore's staff. During a surveying expedition
he visited Kentucky, which so pleased him that in 1774 he decided
to make that part of the back country his home. He was even then
a man of powerful frame, with broad brow, keen blue eyes, and a
dash of red in his hair from a Scottish ancestress--a man, too,
of ardent patriotism, strong common sense, and exceptional powers
of initiative and leadership. Small wonder that in the rapidly
developing commonwealth beyond the mountains he quickly became a
dominating spirit.