own the Kaskaskia, into the flood of
the Mississippi, against many weary leagues of the Ohio's current, and
up the swollen Wabash until they were to come to the mouth of the White
River near Vincennes. There they were to await us.

Should we ever see them again? I think that this was the unspoken
question in the hearts of the many who were to go by land.

The 5th was a mild, gray day, with the melting snow lying in patches on
the brown bluff, and the sun making shift to pierce here and there. We
formed the regiment in the fort,--backwoodsman and Creole now to fight
for their common country, Jacques and Pierre and Alphonse; and mother
and father, sweetheart and wife, waiting to wave a last good-by. Bravely
we marched out of the gate and into the church for Father Gibault's
blessing. And then, forming once more, we filed away on the road leading
northward to the ferry, our colors flying, leaving the weeping, cheering
crowd behind. In front of the tall men of the column was a wizened
figure, beating madly on a drum, stepping proudly with head thrown back.
It was Cowan's voice that snapped the strain.

"Go it, Davy, my little gamecock!" he cried, and the men laughed and
cheered. And so we came to the bleak ferry landing where we had crossed
on that hot July night six months before.

We were soon on the prairies, and in the misty rain that fell and fell
they seemed to melt afar into a gray and cheerless ocean. The sodden
grass was matted now and unkempt. Lifeless lakes filled the depressions,
and through them we waded mile after mile ankle-deep. There was a little
cavalcade mounted on the tiny French ponies, and sometimes I rode with
these; but oftenest Cowan or Tom would fling me; drum and all, on his
shoulder. For we had reached the forest swamps where the water is the
color of the Creole coffee. And day after day as we marched, the soft
rain came out of the east and wet us to the skin.

It was a journey of torments, and even that first part of it was enough
to discourage the most resolute spirit. Men might be led through it, but
never driven. It is ever the mind which suffers through the monotonies
of bodily discomfort, and none knew this better than Clark himself.
Every morning as we set out with the wet hide chafing our skin, the
Colonel would run the length of the regiment, crying:--

"Who gives the feast to-night, boys?"

Now it was Bowman's company, now McCarty's, now Bayley's. How the
hunters vied with each o