There were four of us pilgrims - my Wife, our Boy of ten and a half years, the Doctor, and I. My object in going - the others went for the outing - was to gather local color for work in Western history. The Ohio River was an important factor in the development of the West. I wished to know the great waterway intimately in its various phases, - to see with my own eyes what the borderers saw; in imagination, to redress the pioneer stage, and repeople it.