Monsieur Vigo stared, and passed his hand from his forehead backwards over his long hair. I leaned forward in my corner by the hickory fire.
“Then we will be fish,” said Colonel Clark. “Better that than food for the crows. For, if we stay here, we shall be caught like bears in a trap, and Kentucky will be at Hamilton's mercy.”
“Sacré!” exclaimed Monsieur Vigo, “you are mad, mon ami. I know what this country is, and you cannot get to Vincennes.”
“I will get to Vincennes,” said Colonel Clark, so gently that Monsieur Vigo knew he meant it. “I will swim to Vincennes.”
Monsieur Vigo raised his hands to heaven. The three of us went out of the door and walked. There was a snowy place in front of the church all party-colored like a clown's coat,—scarlet capotes, yellow capotes, and blue capotes, and bright silk handkerchiefs. They surrounded the Colonel. Pardieu, what was he to do now? For the British governor and his savages were coming to take revenge on them because, in their necessity, they had declared for Congress. Colonel Clark went silently on his way to the gate; but Monsieur Vigo stopped, and Kaskaskia heard, with a shock, that this man of iron was to march against Vincennes.
The gates of the fort were shut, and the captains summoned. Undaunted woodsmen as they were, they were lukewarm, at first, at the idea of this march through the floods. Who can blame them? They had, indeed, sacrificed much. But in ten minutes they had caught his enthusiasm (which is one of the mysteries of genius). And the men paraded in the snow likewise caught it, and swung their hats at the notion of taking the Hair Buyer.
“'Tis no news to me,” said Terence, stamping his feet on the flinty ground; “wasn't it Davy that pointed him out to us and the hair liftin' from his head six months since?”
“Und you like schwimmin', yes?” said Swein Poulsson, his face like the rising sun with the cold.
“Swimmin', is it?” said Terence; “sure, the divil made worse things than wather. And Hamilton's beyant.”
“I reckon that'll fetch us through,” Bill Cowan put in grimly.