Clark instantly started to build a pirogue; then crossing over the first channel he put up a scaffold on the edge of the flooded plain.  He ferried his men over, and brought the baggage across and placed it on the scaffold; then he swam the pack-horses over, loaded them as they stood belly-deep in the water beside the scaffold, and marched his men on through the water until they came to the second channel, which was crossed as the first 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 one of the hunters killing a deer.