at all because the watercourses were so full, and that he had originally intended to attack the settlements at the Falls.] But Bird was not one of the few men fitted to command such a force as that which followed him; and contenting himself with the slight success he had won, he rapidly retreated to Detroit, over the same path by which he had advanced.  The Indians carried off many horses, and loaded their prisoners with the plunder, tomahawking those, chiefly women and children, who could not keep up with the rest; and Bird could not control them nor force them to show mercy to their captives. [Footnote:  Collins, Butler, etc.  Marshall thinks that if the force could have been held together it would have depopulated Kentucky; but this is nonsense, for within a week Clark had gathered a very much larger and more efficient body of troops.] He did not even get his cannon back to Detroit, leaving them at the British store in one of the upper Miami towns, in charge of a bombardier.  The bombardier did not prove a very valorous personage, and on the alarm of Clark’s advance, soon afterwards, he permitted the Indians to steal his horses, and was forced to bury his ordnance in the woods. [Footnote:  Haldimand MSS.  Letter of Bombardier Wm. Homan, Aug. 18, 1780.  He speaks of “the gun” and “the smaller ordnance,” presumably swivels.  It is impossible to give Bird’s numbers correctly, for various bands of Indians kept joining and leaving him.]

    Clark Hears the News

Before this inroad took place Clark had been planning a foray into the Indian country, and the news only made him hasten his preparations.  In May this adventurous leader had performed one of the feats which made him the darling of the backwoodsmen.  Painted and dressed like an Indian so as to deceive the lurking bands of savages, he and two companions left the fort he had built on the bank of the Mississippi, and came through the wilderness to Harrodsburg.  They lived on the buffaloes they shot, and when they came to the Tennessee River, which was then in flood, they crossed the swift torrent on a raft of logs bound together with grapevines.  At Harrodsburg they found the land court open, and thronged with an eager, jostling crowd of settlers and speculators, who were waiting to enter lands in the surveyor’s office.  Even the dread of the Indians could not overcome in these men’s hearts the keen and selfish greed for gain.  Clark instantly grasped the situation.  Seeing that while the court remained open he could get no volunteers, he on his own responsibility closed it off-hand, and proclaimed that it would not be opened until after he came back from his expedition.  The speculators grumbled and clamored, but this troubled Clark not at all, for he was able to get as many volunteers as he wished.  The discontent, and still more the panic over Bird’s inroad, made many of the settlers determine to flee from the country, but Clark sent a small force to Crab Orchard, at the mouth of the Wilderness road, the only outlet from Kentucky, with instructions to stop all men from leaving the country, and to take away their arms if they persisted; while four fifths of all the grown men were drafted, and were bidden to gather instantly for a campaign. [Footnote:  Bradford MSS.]