ntlemen and a spy of
Colonel Clark's for Vincennes, and their triumphant return in August.
The sacrifice of the good priest had not been in vain, and he came back
with the joyous news of a peaceful conquest. The stars and stripes now
waved over the fort, and the French themselves had put it there. And the
vast stretch of country from that place westward to the Father of Waters
was now American.

And that brings me to the second oversight. The surprise and conquest of
Cahokia by Bowman and his men was like that of Kaskaskia. And the French
there were loyal, too, offering their militia for service in the place
of those men of Bowman's company who would not reenlist. These came to
Kaskaskia to join our home-goers, and no sooner had the hundred marched
out of the gate and taken up their way for Kentucky than Colonel Clark
began the drilling of the new troops.

Captain Leonard Helm was sent to take charge of Vincennes, and Captain
Montgomery set out across the mountains for Williamsburg with letters
praying the governor of Virginia to come to our assistance.

For another cloud had risen in the horizon: another problem for Clark
to face of greater portent than all the others. A messenger from Captain
Bowman at Cohos came riding down the street on a scraggly French pony,
and pulled up before headquarters. The messenger was Sergeant Thomas
McChesney, and his long legs almost reached the ground on either side of
the little beast. Leaping from the saddle, he seized me in his arms, set
me down, and bade me tell Colonel Clark of his arrival.

It was a sultry August morning. Within the hour Colonel Clark and Tom
and myself were riding over the dusty trace that wound westward across
the common lands of the village, which was known as the Fort Chartres
road. The heat-haze shimmered in the distance, and there was no sound in
plain or village save the tinkle of a cowbell from the clumps of shade.
Colonel Clark rode twenty paces in front, alone, his head bowed with
thinking.

"They're coming into Cahokia as thick as bees out'n a gum, Davy," said
Tom; "seems like there's thousands of 'em. Nothin' will do 'em but they
must see the Colonel,--the varmints. And they've got patience, they'll
wait thar till the b'ars git fat. I reckon they 'low Clark's got
the armies of Congress behind him. If they knowed," said Tom, with a
chuckle, "if they knowed that we'd only got seventy of the boys and some
hundred Frenchies in the army! I reckon the