right, Davy," he would say, in
answer to my look as he passed me. But on his face was written something
that I did not understand.

How the Creole farmers and traders, unused even to the common ways of
woodcraft, endured that fearful day and others that followed, I know not.
And when a tardy justice shall arise and compel the people of this land
to raise a shaft in memory of Clark and those who followed him, let not
the loyalty of the French be forgotten, though it be not understood.

At eventide came to lurid and disordered brains the knowledge that the
other branch was here. And, mercifully, it was shallower than the first.
Holding his rifle high, with a war-whoop Bill Cowan plunged into the
stream. Unable to contain myself more, I flung my drum overboard and
went after it, and amid shouts and laughter I was towed across by James
Ray.

Colonel Clark stood watching from the bank above, and it was he who
pulled me, bedraggled, to dry land. I ran away to help gather brush for
a fire. As I was heaping this in a pile I heard something that I should
not have heard. Nor ought I to repeat it now, though I did not need the
flames to send the blood tingling through my body.

"McChesney," said the Colonel, "we must thank our stars that we brought
the boy along. He has grit, and as good a head as any of us. I reckon
if it hadn't been for him some of them would have turned back long ago."

I saw Tom grinning at the Colonel as gratefully as though he himself had
been praised.

The blaze started, and soon we had a bonfire. Some had not the strength
to hold out the buffalo meat to the fire. Even the grumblers and
mutineers were silent, owing to the ordeal they had gone through. But
presently, when they began to be warmed and fed, they talked of other
trials to be borne. The Embarrass and the big Wabash, for example.
These must be like the sea itself.

"Take the back trail, if ye like," said Bill Cowan, with a loud laugh.
"I reckon the rest of us kin float to Vincennes on Davy's drum."

But there was no taking the back trail now; and well they knew it. The
games began, the unwilling being forced to play, and before they fell
asleep that night they had taken Vincennes, scalped the Hair Buyer, and
were far on the march to Detroit.

Mercifully, now that their stomachs were full, they had no worries. Few
knew the danger we were in of being cut off by Hamilton's roving bands of
Indians. There would be no retreat, no escape, but a