Jim grinned. “It takes a lot of practice, Willie, but I’ve an idea. If you’ll let me have your father’s rifle, I’ll let you take my drum. You can play it well, and I’ve had experience with rifles. My father taught me to use one.”
Willie smiled. “Will you, Jim? Sure—you can have the rifle.”
“I don’t think we’d better say anything to Colonel Clark until it’s time to go,” Jim cautioned. “He might think of an excuse to keep us from going with him.”
“All right, Jim. Mum’s the word, but I’ll manage to get the rifle.”
By nightfall Captain Charleville had raised his company of Kaskaskia volunteers. The women were so enthusiastic about the undertaking that they worked furiously for the next two days, making flags of various colors and designs. When they were presented to Colonel Clark, he didn’t know what he would do with so many flags. But he thanked the ladies gravely and packed their gift with the army supplies.
On the third of February Captain McCarty arrived from Cahokia with his volunteers. That same day the men finished work on the riverboat, which Clark had named the Willing. They had made it into a warship equipped with armament of two four-pounders and four swivels. It required a crew of forty men to man, and Clark put Captain John Rogers in charge of it.
He ordered Rogers to go down the Kaskaskia and Mississippi Rivers to the Ohio and ascend the Ohio and Wabash Rivers; then he was to take his station thirty miles below Vincennes and wait there for further orders. The next day Captain Rogers and his crew set out on the warship with supplies, stores and ammunition.
At three o’clock in the afternoon of February fifth, Clark’s army was ready to march. Jim had had to talk long and hard to get Clark’s permission to go with the troops; he had made no mention of Willie. But Willie stood beside Jim, carrying his father’s rifle, which protruded above his head.
As the army, one hundred-thirty men strong, stood waiting, Father Gibault made a little talk to the men and gave them his blessing and absolution. All the women and men not able to go with Clark were on hand to bid the troops good-bye and wish them Godspeed.
George Rogers Clark rode in front on a magnificent stallion, followed by his officers, also mounted. Jim Long-Knife Hudson, wearing an ill-fitting buckskin suit and beating his drum, stepped out proudly. Willie Watson dropped back to the rear of the second company, fearing Colonel Clark would see him and send him home because of his age and size.