"Boone and twenty-seven others have been captured by the Indians."
"Boone? We are laying a trap for those very Indians," and then and there Major Clark announced the object of the expedition.
Some cheered the wild adventure, some trembled and deserted in the night, but one hundred and eighty men embarked with no baggage beyond a rifle and a wallet of corn for each.
The snows of the Alleghanies were melting. A million rivulets leaped to the blue Ohio. It was the June rise, the river was booming. Poling his little flotilla out into the main channel Clark and his borderers shot the rapids at the very moment that the sun veiled itself in an all but total eclipse at nine o'clock in the morning.
It was a dramatic dash, as on and on he sped down the river, bank-full, running like a millrace.
VII
KASKASKIA
Double manned, relays of rowers toiled at the oars by night and by day.
"Do you see those hunters?"
At the mouth of the Tennessee, almost as if prearranged, two white men emerged from the Illinois swamps as Clark shot by. He paused and questioned the strangers.
"We are just from Kaskaskia. Rocheblave is alone with neither troops nor money. The French believe you Long Knives to be the most fierce, cruel, and bloodthirsty savages that ever scalped a foe."