or miles. The wind shifted northwesterly, taking on a searching chill.
Each gust, indeed, seemed to shoot wintry splinters into the very
marrow of the men's bones. The weaker ones began to show the approach
of utter exhaustion just at the time when a final spurt of unflinching
power was needed. True, they struggled heroically; but nature was
nearing the inexorable limit of endurance. Without food, which there
was no prospect of getting, collapse was sure to come.

Standing nearly waist-deep in freezing water and looking out upon the
muddy, sea-like flood that stretched far away to the channel of the
Wabash and beyond, Clark turned to Beverley and said, speaking low, so
as not to be overheard by any other of his officers or men:

"Is it possible, Lieutenant Beverley, that we are to fail, with
Vincennes almost in sight of us?"

"No, sir, it is not possible," was the firm reply. "Nothing must,
nothing can stop us. Look at that brave child! He sets the heroic
example."

Beverley pointed, as he spoke, at a boy but fourteen years old, who was
using his drum as a float to bear him up while he courageously swam
beside the men.

Clark's clouded face cleared once more. "You are right," he said, "come
on! we must win or die."

"Sergeant Dewit," he added, turning to an enormously tall and athletic
man near by, "take that little drummer and his drum on your shoulder
and lead the way. And, sergeant, make him pound that drum like the
devil beating tan-bark!"

The huge man caught the spirit of his commander's order. In a twinkling
he had the boy astride of his neck with the kettle-drum resting on his
head, and then the rattling music began. Clark followed, pointing
onward with his sword. The half frozen and tottering soldiers sent up a
shout that went back to where Captain Bowman was bringing up the rear
under orders to shoot every man that straggled or shrank from duty.

Now came a time when not a mouthful of food was left. A whole day they
floundered on, starving, growing fainter at every step, the temperature
falling, the ice thickening. They camped on high land; and next morning
they heard Hamilton's distant sunrise gun boom over the water.

"One half-ration for the men," said Clark, looking disconsolately in
the direction whence the sound had come. "Just five mouthfuls apiece,
even, and I'll have Hamilton and his fort within forty-eight hours."

"We will have the provisions, Colonel, or I will die trying to get
them,"