In the _Magazine of Am.
Hist._, I., p.

175.] He mentions being entertained by Clark at "a very elegant dinner," [Footnote: 2 Aug.

25, 1786.] a number of gentlemen being present.

After dinner the guests adjourned to the dancing school, "where there were twelve or fifteen young misses, some of whom had made considerable improvement in that polite accomplishment, and indeed were middling neatly dressed considering the distance from where luxuries are to be bought and the expense attending the purchase of them here"-- for though beef and flour were cheap, all imported goods sold for at least five times as much as they cost in Philadelphia or New York.

The officers sometimes gave dances in the forts, the ladies and their escorts coming in to spend the night; and they attended the great barbecues to which the people rode from far and near, many of the men carrying their wives or sweethearts behind them on the saddle.