t, over the same path by which he had advanced. The
Indians carried off many horses, and loaded their prisoners with the
plunder, tomahawking those, chiefly women and children, who could not
keep up with the rest; and Bird could not control them nor force them to
show mercy to their captives. [Footnote: Collins, Butler, etc. Marshall
thinks that if the force could have been held together it would have
depopulated Kentucky; but this is nonsense, for within a week Clark had
gathered a very much larger and more efficient body of troops.] He did
not even get his cannon back to Detroit, leaving them at the British
store in one of the upper Miami towns, in charge of a bombardier. The
bombardier did not prove a very valorous personage, and on the alarm of
Clark's advance, soon afterwards, he permitted the Indians to steal his
horses, and was forced to bury his ordnance in the woods. [Footnote:
Haldimand MSS. Letter of Bombardier Wm. Homan, Aug. 18, 1780. He speaks
of "the gun" and "the smaller ordnance," presumably swivels. It is
impossible to give Bird's numbers correctly, for various bands of
Indians kept joining and leaving him.]

Clark Hears the News

Before this inroad took place Clark had been planning a foray into the
Indian country, and the news only made him hasten his preparations. In
May this adventurous leader had performed one of the feats which made
him the darling of the backwoodsmen. Painted and dressed like an Indian
so as to deceive the lurking bands of savages, he and two companions
left the fort he had built on the bank of the Mississippi, and came
through the wilderness to Harrodsburg. They lived on the buffaloes they
shot, and when they came to the Tennessee River, which was then in
flood, they crossed the swift torrent on a raft of logs bound together
with grapevines. At Harrodsburg they found the land court open, and
thronged with an eager, jostling crowd of settlers and speculators, who
were waiting to enter lands in the surveyor's office. Even the dread of
the Indians could not overcome in these men's hearts the keen and
selfish greed for gain. Clark instantly grasped the situation. Seeing
that while the court remained open he could get no volunteers, he on his
own responsibility closed it off-hand, and proclaimed that it would not
be opened until after he came back from his expedition. The speculators
grumbled and clamored, but this troubled Clark not at all, for he was
able to get as many volu