fires, and feasted like Indian
war dancers." After a week the ice had broken up, and the thaw
flooded everything. The branches of the Little Wabash now made one
great river five miles wide, the water even in the shallow places
being three feet deep.

It took three days of the hardest work to ferry the little force
across the flooded plain. All day long the men waded in the icy
waters, and at night they slept as well as they could on some muddy
hillock that rose above the flood. By this time they had come so near
Vincennes that they dared not fire a gun for fear of being
discovered.

Marching at the head of his chilled and foot-sore army, Clark was the
first to test every danger.

"Come on, boys!" he would shout, as he plunged into the flood.

Were the men short of food? "I am not hungry," he would say, "help
yourself." Was some poor fellow chilled to the bone? "Take my
blanket," said Clark, "I am glad to get rid of it."

In fact, as peril and suffering increased, the courage and the
cheerfulness of the young leader seemed to grow stronger.

{13} On February 17, the tired army heard Hamilton's sunrise gun on
the fort at Vincennes, nine miles away, boom across the muddy flood.

Their food had now given out. The bravest began to lose heart, and
wished to go back. In hastily made dugouts the men were ferried, in a
driving rain, to the eastern bank of the Wabash; but they found no
dry land for miles round. With Clark leading the way, the men waded
for three miles with the water often up to their chins, and camped on
a hillock for the night. The records tell us that a little drummer
boy, whom some of the tallest men carried on their shoulders, made a
deal of fun for the weary men by his pranks and jokes.

Death now stared them in the face. The canoes could find no place to
ford. Even the riflemen huddled together in despair. Clark blacked
his face with damp gunpowder, as the Indians did when ready to die,
gave the war whoop, and leaped into the ice-cold river. With a wild
shout the men followed. The whole column took up their line of march,
singing a merry song. They halted six miles from Vincennes. The night
was bitterly cold, and the half-frozen and half-starved men tried to
sleep on a hillock.

The next morning the sun rose bright and beautiful. Clark made a
thrilling speech and told his famished men that they would surely
reach the fort before dark. One of the captains, however, was sent
with twenty-five trus