st had been. The building of the pirogue and the
ferrying took three days in all.

They had by this time come so near Vincennes that they dared not fire a
gun for fear of being discovered; besides, the floods had driven the
game all away; so that they soon began to feel hunger, while their
progress was very slow, and they suffered much from the fatigue of
travelling all day long through deep mud or breast-high water. On the
17th they reached the Embarras River, but could not cross, nor could
they find a dry spot on which to camp; at last they found the water
falling off a small, almost submerged hillock, and on this they huddled
through the night. At daybreak they heard Hamilton's morning gun from
the fort, that was but three leagues distant; and as they could not find
a ford across the Embarras, they followed it down and camped by the
Wabash. There Clark set his drenched, hungry, and dispirited followers
to building some pirogues; while two or three unsuccessful attempts were
made to get men across the river that they might steal boats. He
determined to leave his horses at this camp; for it was almost
impossible to get them further. [Footnote: This is not exactly stated in
the "Memoir"; but it speaks of the horses as being with the troops on
the 20th; and after they left camp, on the evening of the 21st, states
that he "would have given a good deal ... for one of the horses."]

Hardship and Suffering.

On the morning of the 20th the men had been without food for nearly two
days. Many of the Creole volunteers began to despair, and talked of
returning. Clark knew that his Americans, veterans who had been with him
for over a year, had no idea of abandoning the enterprise, nor yet of
suffering the last extremities of hunger while they had horses along. He
paid no heed to the request of the Creoles, nor did he even forbid their
going back; he only laughed at them, and told them to go out and try to
kill a deer. He knew that without any violence he could yet easily
detain the volunteers for a few days longer; and he kept up the spirits
of the whole command by his undaunted and confident mien. The canoes
were nearly finished; and about noon a small boat with five Frenchmen
from Vincennes was captured. From these Clark gleaned the welcome
intelligence that the condition of affairs was unchanged at the fort,
and that there was no suspicion of any impending danger. In the evening
the men were put in still better heart by o