ghty soldiers; you can take
the fort, and I will lend you all the money you need to pay your men
what you owe them."

[Footnote 8: Vigo (Vee-go).]

[Footnote 9: The priest was Father Gibault (Zhe-bo').]

165. Clark's march to Fort Vincennes; the "Drowned Lands."--Clark,
with about two hundred men, started for Vincennes. The distance was
nearly a hundred and fifty miles. The first week everything went on
pretty well. It was in the month of February, the weather was cold,
and it rained a good deal, but the men did not mind that. They would
get wet through during the day; but at night they built roaring log
fires, gathered round them, roasted their buffalo meat or venison,
smoked their pipes, told jolly stories, and sang jolly songs.

But the next week they got to a branch of the Wabash River.[10] Then
they found that the constant rains had raised the streams so that
they had overflowed their banks; the whole country was under water
three or four feet deep. This flooded country was called the "Drowned
Lands": before Clark and his men had crossed them they were nearly
drowned themselves.

[Footnote 10: See map in paragraph 161.]

166. Wading on to victory.--For about a week the Americans had to
wade in ice-cold water, sometimes waist deep, sometimes nearly up
to their chins. While wading, the men were obliged to hold their guns
and powder-horns above their heads to keep them dry. Now and then
a man would stub his toe against a root or a stone and would go
sprawling headfirst into the water. When he came up, puffing and
blowing from such a dive, he was lucky if he still had his gun. For
two days no one could get anything to eat; but hungry, wet, and cold,
they kept moving slowly on.

[Illustration: MEN WADING WITH GUNS OVER THEIR HEADS.]

The last part of the march was the worst of all. They were now near
the fort, but they still had to wade through a sheet of water four
miles across. Clark took the lead and plunged in. The rest, shivering,
followed. A few looked as though their strength and courage had given
out. Clark saw this, and calling to Captain Bowman,--one of the
bravest of his officers,--he ordered him to kill the first man who
refused to go forward.

At last, with numbed hands and chattering teeth, all got across, but
some of them were so weak and blue with cold that they could not take
another step, but fell flat on their faces in the mud. These men were
so nearly dead that no fire seemed to warm