The messenger flew ahead; upon the captured horses of other duck-hunters Clark mounted his officers. It was just at nightfall when they entered the lower gate.
"Silence those drunken Indians," roared Hamilton at the sound of guns. But the Frenchmen themselves turned their rifles on the fort.
Under the friendly light of the new moon Clark and his men threw up an intrenchment, and from behind its shelter in fifteen minutes the skilled volleys of the border rifle had silenced two of the cannon.
"Surrender!" was Clark's stentorian summons at daylight.
Hamilton, with the blood of many a borderer on his head,—what had he to hope? Hot and hotter rained the bullets.
"Give me three days to consider."
"Not an hour!" was Clark's reply.
"Let me fight with you?" said The Tobacco's son, the principal chief on the Wabash.
"No," answered Clark, "you sit back and watch us. Americans do not hire Indians to fight their battles."
Amazed, the Indians fell back and waited.