Should we ever see them again?  I think that this was the unspoken question in the hearts of the many who were to go by land.

The 5th was a mild, gray day, with the melting snow lying in patches on the brown bluff, and the sun making shift to pierce here and there.  We formed the regiment in the fort,—­backwoodsman and Creole now to fight for their common country, Jacques and Pierre and Alphonse; and mother and father, sweetheart and wife, waiting to wave a last good-by.  Bravely we marched out of the gate and into the church for Father Gibault’s blessing.  And then, forming once more, we filed away on the road leading northward to the ferry, our colors flying, leaving the weeping, cheering crowd behind.  In front of the tall men of the column was a wizened figure, beating madly on a drum, stepping proudly with head thrown back.  It was Cowan’s voice that snapped the strain.

“Go it, Davy, my little gamecock!” he cried, and the men laughed and cheered.  And so we came to the bleak ferry landing where we had crossed on that hot July night six months before.

We were soon on the prairies, and in the misty rain that fell and fell they seemed to melt afar into a gray and cheerless ocean.  The sodden grass was matted now and unkempt.  Lifeless lakes filled the depressions, and through them we waded mile after mile ankle-deep.  There was a little cavalcade mounted on the tiny French ponies, and sometimes I rode with these; but oftenest Cowan or Tom would fling me; drum and all, on his shoulder.  For we had reached the forest swamps where the water is the color of the Creole coffee.  And day after day as we marched, the soft rain came out of the east and wet us to the skin.

It was a journey of torments, and even that first part of it was enough to discourage the most resolute spirit.  Men might be led through it, but never driven.  It is ever the mind which suffers through the monotonies of bodily discomfort, and none knew this better than Clark himself.  Every morning as we set out with the wet hide chafing our skin, the Colonel would run the length of the regiment, crying:—­

“Who gives the feast to-night, boys?”

Now it was Bowman’s company, now McCarty’s, now Bayley’s.  How the hunters vied with each other to supply the best, and spent the days stalking the deer cowering in the wet thickets.  We crossed the Saline, and on the plains beyond was a great black patch, a herd of buffalo.  A party of chosen men headed by Tom McChesney was sent after them, and never shall I forget the sight of the mad beasts charging through the water.

That night, when our chilled feet could bear no more, we sought out a patch of raised ground a little firmer than a quagmire, and heaped up the beginnings of a fire with such brush as could be made to burn, robbing the naked thickets.  Saddle and steak sizzled, leather steamed and stiffened, hearts and bodies thawed; grievances that men had nursed over miles of water melted.  Courage sits best on a full stomach, and as they ate they cared not whether the Atlantic had opened between them and Vincennes.  An hour agone, and there were twenty cursing laggards, counting the leagues back to Kaskaskia.  Now:—­