It rained all the next day.  By dawn Clark began to ferry the troops over the Wabash in the canoes he had built, and they were soon on the eastern bank of the river, the side on which Vincennes stood.  They now hoped to get to town by nightfall; but there was no dry land for leagues round about, save where a few hillocks rose island-like above the flood.  The Frenchmen whom they had captured said they could not possibly get along; but Clark led the men in person, and they waded with infinite toil for about three miles, the water often up to their chins; and they then camped on a hillock for the night.  Clark kept the troops cheered up by every possible means, and records that he was much assisted by “a little antic drummer,” a young boy who did good service by making the men laugh with his pranks and jokes. [Footnote:  Law, in his “Vincennes” (p. 32), makes the deeds of the drummer the basis for a traditional story that is somewhat too highly colored.  Thus he makes Clark’s men at one time mutiny, and refuse to go forwards.  This they never did; the Creoles once got dejected and wished to return, but the Americans, by Clark’s own statement, never faltered at all.  Law’s “Vincennes” is an excellent little book, but he puts altogether too much confidence in mere tradition.  For another instance besides this, see page 68, where he describes Clark as entrapping and killing “upwards of fifty Indians,” instead of only eight or nine, as was actually the case.]

Next morning they resumed their march, the strongest wading painfully through the water, while the weak and famished were carried in the canoes, which were so hampered by the bushes that they could hardly go even as fast as the toiling footmen.  The evening and morning guns of the fort were heard plainly by the men as they plodded onward, numbed and weary.  Clark, as usual, led them in person.  Once they came to a place so deep that there seemed no crossing, for the canoes could find no ford.  It was hopeless to go back or stay still, and the men huddled together, apparently about to despair.  But Clark suddenly blackened his face with gunpowder, gave the war-whoop, and sprang forwards boldly into the ice-cold water, wading out straight towards the point at which they were aiming; and the men followed him, one after another, without a word.  Then he ordered those nearest him to begin one of their favorite songs; and soon the whole line took it up, and marched cheerfully onward.  He intended to have the canoes ferry them over the deepest part, but before they came to it one of the men felt that his feet were in a path, and by carefully following it they got to a sugar camp, a hillock covered with maples, which once had been tapped for sugar.  Here they camped for the night, still six miles from the town, without food, and drenched through.  The prisoners from Vincennes, sullen and weary, insisted that they could not possibly get to the town through the deep water; the prospect seemed almost hopeless even to the iron-willed, steel-sinewed backwoodsmen [Footnote:  Bowman ends his entry for the day with:  “No provisions yet.  Lord help us!"]; but their leader never lost courage for a moment.