102 The Winning of the West 



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 pos- 

 sibly get to the town through the deep water; the 

 prospect seemed almost hopeless even to the iron- 

 willed, steel-sinewed backwoodsmen 28 ; but their 

 leader never lost courage for a moment. 



That night was bitterly cold, for there was a 

 heavy frost, and the ice formed half an inch thick 

 round the edges and in the smooth water. But the 

 sun rose bright and glorious, and Clark, in burning 

 words, told his stiffened, famished, half-frozen fol- 

 lowers that the evening would surely see them at 

 the goal of their hopes. Without waiting for an 

 answer, he plunged into the water, and they followed 

 him with a cheer, in Indian file. Before the third man 

 had entered the water he halted and told one of his 

 officers 29 to close the rear with twenty-five men, 

 and to put to death any man who refused to march ; 

 and the whole line cheered him again. 



Then came the most trying time of the whole 

 march. Before them lay a broad sheet of water, 

 covering what was known as the Horse Shoe Plain ; 

 the floods had made it a shallow lake four miles 

 across, unbroken by so much as a hand's-breadth of 

 dry land. On its further side was a dense wood. 

 Clark led breast high in the water with fifteen or 

 twenty of the strongest men next him. About the 



28 Bowman ends his entry for the day with: "No provisions 

 yet. Lord help us!" 

 99 Bowman. 



