cident which showed Clark's boldness in
dealing with Indians. Years after the Illinois campaign, three
hundred Shawnee warriors came in full war paint to Fort Washington,
the present site of Cincinnati, to meet the great "Long Knife" chief
in council. Clark had only seventy men in the stockade. The savages
strode into the council room with a war belt and a peace belt. Full
of fight and ugliness, they threw the belts on the table, and told
the great pioneer leader to take his choice.

[Illustration: Fort Washington, a Stockaded Fort on the Ohio, the
Present Site of Cincinnati]

Quick as a flash, Clark rose to his feet, swept both the belts to the
floor with his cane, stamped upon them, and thrust the savages out of
the hall, telling them to make peace at once, or he would drive them
off the {11} face of the earth. The Shawnees held a council which
lasted all night, but in the morning they humbly agreed to bury the
hatchet.

Great was the wrath of Hamilton, the "hair buyer general," when he
heard what the young Virginian had done. He at once sent out runners
to stir up the savages; and, in the first week of October, he set out
in person from Detroit with five hundred British regulars, French,
and Indians. He recaptured Vincennes without any trouble. Clark had
been able to leave only a few of the men he had sent there, and some
of them deserted the moment they caught sight of the redcoats.

If Hamilton had pushed on through the Illinois country, he could
easily have crushed the little American force; but it was no easy
thing to march one hundred and forty miles over snow-covered
prairies, and so the British commander decided to wait until spring.

When Clark heard of the capture of Vincennes, he knew that he had not
enough men to meet Hamilton in open fight. What was he to do? Fortune
again came to his aid.

The last of January, he heard that Hamilton had sent most of his men
back to Detroit; that the Indians had scattered among the villages;
and that the British commander himself was now wintering at Vincennes
with about a hundred men. Clark at once decided to do what Hamilton
had failed to do. Having selected the best of his riflemen, together
with a few Creoles, {12} one hundred and seventy men in all, he set
out on February 7 for Vincennes.

All went well for the first week. They marched rapidly. Their rifles
supplied them with food. At night, as an old journal says, they
"broiled their meat over the huge camp