Thus ends the first part of our story. It was easy enough to end, as has been seen. But there was a second part which was not so easy. You must know that the British had other strongholds in that country. One of them was Detroit, on the Detroit River, near Lake Erie. This was their starting-point. Far to the south, on the Wabash River, in what is now the State of Indiana, was another fort called Vincennes, which lay about one hundred and fifty miles to the east of Fort Kaskaskia. This was an old French fort also, and it was held by the French for the British as Kaskaskia had been. Colonel Clark wanted this fort too, and got it without much trouble. He had not men enough to take it by force, so he sent a French priest there, who told the people that their best friends were the Americans, not the British. It was not hard to make them believe this, for the French people had never liked the British. So they hauled down the British ensign and hauled up the Stars and Stripes, and Vincennes became an American fort.
After that Colonel Clark went back to Kentucky, proud to think that he had won the great Northwest Territory for the United States with so little trouble. But he might have known that the British would not let themselves be driven out of the country in this easy manner, and before the winter was over he heard news that was not much to his liking. Colonel Hamilton, the English commander at Detroit, had marched down to Vincennes and taken the fort back again. It was also said that he intended to capture Kaskaskia, and then march south and try and win Kentucky for the English. This Hamilton was the man who was said to have hired the Indians to murder the American settlers, and Clark was much disturbed by the news. He must be quick to act, or all that he had won would be lost.
He had a terrible task before him. The winter was near its end and the Wabash had risen and overflowed its banks on all sides. For hundreds of square miles the country was under water, and Vincennes was in the centre of a great shallow lake. It was freezing water, too, for this was no longer the warm spring time, as it had been in the march to Kaskaskia, but dull and drear February. Yet the brave colonel knew that he must act quickly if he was to act at all. Hamilton had only eighty men; he could raise twice that many. He had no money to pay them, but a merchant in St. Louis offered to lend him all he needed. There was the water to cross, but the hardy Kentucky hunters were used to wet and cold. So Colonel Clark hastily collected his men and set out for Vincennes.
A sturdy set of men they were who followed him, dressed in hunting-shirts and carrying their long and tried rifles. On their heads were fur caps, ornamented with deer or raccoon tails. They believed in Colonel Clark, and that is a great deal in warlike affairs. As they trudged onward there came days of cold, hard rain, so that every night they had to build great fires to warm themselves and dry their clothes. Thus they went on, day after day, through the woods and prairies, carrying their packs of provisions and supplies on their backs, and shooting game to add to their food supply.
This was holiday work to what lay before them. After a week of this kind of travel they came to a new kind. The "drowned lands" of the Wabash lay before them. Everywhere nothing but water was to be seen. The winter rains had so flooded the streams that a great part of the country was overflowed. And there was no way to reach the fort except by crossing those waters, for they spread round it on all sides. They must plunge in and wade through or give up and go back.
We may be sure that there were faint hearts among them when they felt the cold water and knew that there were miles of it to cross, here ankle- or knee-deep, there waist-deep. But they had known this when they started, and they were not the men to turn back. At Colonel Clark's cheery word of command they plunged in and began their long and shivering journey.
For nearly a week this terrible journey went on. It was a frightful experience. Now and then one of them would stumble and fall, and come up dripping. All day long they tramped dismally on through that endless waste of icy water. Here and there were islands of dry land over which they were glad enough to trudge, but at night they often had trouble to find a dry spot to build their fires and cook their food, and to sleep on beside the welcome blaze. It was hard enough to find game in that dreary waste, and their food ran out, so that for two whole days they had to go hungry. Thus they went on till they came to the point where White River runs into the Wabash.
Here they found some friends who had come by a much easier way. On setting out Colonel Clark had sent Captain Rogers and forty men, with two small cannon, in a boat up Wabash River, telling them to stop at the White River fork, about fifteen or twenty miles below Vincennes. Here their trudging friends found them, and from this point they resumed their march in company. It was easy enough now to transport the cannon by dragging or rowing the boat through the deep water which they had to traverse.
The worst of their difficult journey lay before them, for surrounding the fort was a sheet of water four miles wide which was deeper than any they had yet gone through. They had waded to their knees, and at times to their waists, but now they might have to wade to their necks. Some of them thrust their hands into the water and shivered at the touch, saying that it was freezing cold. There were men among them who held back, exclaiming that it was folly to think of crossing that icy lake.