level meadows they had to take extra precautions to avoid being seen.  Once the chief guide got bewildered and lost himself; he could no longer tell the route, nor whither it was best to march. [Footnote:  Even experienced woodsmen or plainsmen sometimes thus become lost or “turned round,” if in a country of few landmarks, where they have rarely been before.] The whole party was at once cast into the utmost confusion; but Clark soon made the guide understand that he was himself in greater jeopardy than any one else, and would forfeit his life if he did not guide them straight.  Not knowing the man, Clark thought he might be treacherous; and, as he wrote an old friend, he was never in his life in such a rage as when he found his troops wandering at random in a country where, at any moment, they might blunder on several times their number of hostile Indians; while, if they were discovered by any one at all, the whole expedition was sure to miscarry.  However, the guide proved to be faithful; after a couple of hours he found his bearings once more, and guided the party straight to their destination.

    The Surprise of Kaskaskia.

On the evening of the fourth of July [Footnote:  So says Clark; and the Haldimand MSS. contains a letter of Rocheblave of July 4th.  For these campaigns of 1778 I follow where possible Clark’s letter to Mason as being nearly contemporary; his “Memoir,” as given by Dillon, comes next in authority; while Butler, who was very accurate and painstaking, also got hold of original information from men who had taken part in the expedition, or from their descendants, besides making full use of the “Memoir.”] they reached the river Kaskaskia, within three miles of the town, which lay on the farther bank.  They kept in the woods until after it grew dusk, and then marched silently to a little farm on the hither side of the river, a mile from the town.  The family were taken prisoners, and from them Clark learned that some days before the townspeople had been alarmed at the rumor of a possible attack; but that their suspicions had been lulled, and they were then off their guard.  There were a great many men in the town, but almost all French, the Indians having for the most part left.  The account proved correct.  Rocheblave, the creole commandant, was sincerely attached to the British interest.  He had been much alarmed early in the year by the reports brought to him by Indians that the Americans were in Kentucky and elsewhere beyond the Alleghanies.  He had written repeatedly to Detroit, asking that regulars could be sent him, and that he might himself be replaced by a commandant of English birth; for though the French were well-disposed towards the crown, they had been frightened by the reports of the ferocity of the backwoodsmen, and the Indians were fickle.  In his letters he mentioned that the French were much more loyal than the men of English parentage.  Hamilton found it impossible to send him reinforcements however, and he was forced