Clark instantly ordered the French militia to put the captives, both chiefs and warriors, in irons.  He had treated the Indians well, and had not angered them by the harshness and brutality that so often made them side against the English or Americans and in favor of the French; but he knew that any signs of timidity would be fatal.  His boldness and decision were crowned with complete success.  The crestfallen prisoners humbly protested that they were only trying to find out if the French were really friendly to Clark, and begged that they might be released.  He answered with haughty indifference, and refused to release them, even when the chiefs of the other tribes came up to intercede.  Indians and whites alike were in the utmost confusion, every man distrusting what the moment might bring forth.  Clark continued seemingly wholly unmoved, and did not even shift his lodgings to the fort, remaining in a house in the town, but he took good care to secretly fill a large room adjoining his own with armed men, while the guards were kept ready for instant action.  To make his show of indifference complete, he “assembled a Number of Gentlemen and Ladies and danced nearly the whole Night.”  The perplexed savages, on the other hand, spent the hours of darkness in a series of councils among themselves.

Next morning he summoned all the tribes to a grand council, releasing the captive chiefs, that he might speak to them in the presence of their friends and allies.  The preliminary ceremonies were carefully executed in accordance with the rigid Indian etiquette.  Then Clark stood up in the midst of the rings of squatted warriors, while his riflemen clustered behind him in their tasselled hunting-shirts, travel-torn and weather-beaten.  He produced the bloody war-belt of wampum, and handed it to the chiefs whom he had taken captive, telling the assembled tribes that he scorned alike their treachery and their hostility; that he would be thoroughly justified in putting them to death, but that instead he would have them escorted safely from the town, and after three days would begin war upon them.  He warned them that if they did not wish their own women and children massacred, they must stop killing those of the Americans.  Pointing to the war-belt, he challenged them, on behalf of his people, to see which would make it the most bloody; and he finished by telling them that while they stayed in his camp they should be given food and strong drink, [Footnote:  “Provisions and Rum.”  Letter to Mason.  This is much the best authority for these proceedings.  The “Memoir,” written by an old man who had squandered his energies and sunk into deserved obscurity, is tedious and magniloquent, and sometimes inaccurate.  Moreover, Dillon has not always chosen the extracts judiciously.  Clark’s decidedly prolix speeches to the Indians are given with intolerable repetition.  They were well suited to the savages, drawing the causes of the quarrel between the British and Americans in phrases that