and that it would be necessary to surprise the town.  After a six days’ march across country, he came to the outskirts of the village on the evening of July 4th, and found a great dance in progress in the fort.  Waiting until the revelry was at its height, Clark advanced silently, surprised the sentries, and surrounded the fort without causing any alarm.  Then with his men posted, Clark walked forward through the open door, and leaning against the wall, watched the dancers, as they whirled around by the light of the flaring torches.

Suddenly an Indian, after looking at him for a moment, raised the war-whoop; the dancing ceased, but Clark, shouting at the top of his voice to still the confusion, bade the dancers continue, asking them only to remember that thereafter they were dancing under the flag of the United States, instead of that of Great Britain.  A few moments later, the commandant was captured in his bed, and the investment was complete.  The other settlements in the neighborhood surrendered at once, so that the Illinois country was captured without the firing of a gun.

But when the news reached the British governor, Hamilton, at Detroit, he at once prepared to recapture the country.  He had a much larger force at his command than Clark could possibly muster, and in the fall of the year he advanced against Vincennes at the head of over five hundred men.  The little American garrison was unable to oppose such a force and was compelled to surrender.  Instead of pushing on against Clark at Kaskaskia, Hamilton disbanded his Indians and sent some of his troops back to Detroit, and prepared to spend the winter at Vincennes.  He repaired the fort, strengthened the defenses, and then sat down for the winter, confident that when spring came, he would again be master of the whole Illinois country.

Clark, at Kaskaskia, realized that it was a question of his taking the British or the British taking him, and that, if he waited for spring, he would have no chance at all; so he gathered together the pick of his men, one hundred and seventy all told, and early in February, 1779, set out for Vincennes.  The task before him was to capture a force nearly equal to his own, protected by a strong fort well supplied for a siege.

At first the journey was easy enough, for they passed across the snowy Illinois prairies, broken occasionally by great stretches of woodland, but when they reached the drowned lands of the Wabash, the march became almost incredibly difficult.  The ice had just broken up and everything was flooded; heavy rains set in, and when the men were not wading through icy water, they were struggling through mud nearly knee-deep.  After twelve days of this, they came to the bank of the Embarass river, only to find the country all under water, save one little hillock, where they spent the night without food or fire.  For four days they waited there for the flood to retire, with practically nothing to eat; but the rain continued and the flood