Colonel. Pardieu, what was he to do now? For the British governor and
his savages were coming to take revenge on them because, in their
necessity, they had declared for Congress. Colonel Clark went silently
on his way to the gate; but Monsieur Vigo stopped, and Kaskaskia heard,
with a shock, that this man of iron was to march against Vincennes.

The gates of the fort were shut, and the captains summoned. Undaunted
woodsmen as they were, they were lukewarm, at first, at the idea of this
march through the floods. Who can blame them? They had, indeed,
sacrificed much. But in ten minutes they had caught his enthusiasm
(which is one of the mysteries of genius). And the men paraded in the
snow likewise caught it, and swung their hats at the notion of taking the
Hair Buyer.

"'Tis no news to me," said Terence, stamping his feet on the flinty
ground; "wasn't it Davy that pointed him out to us and the hair liftin'
from his head six months since?"

"Und you like schwimmin', yes?" said Swein Poulsson, his face like the
rising sun with the cold.

"Swimmin', is it?" said Terence, "sure, the divil made worse things than
wather. And Hamilton's beyant."

"I reckon that'll fetch us through," Bill Cowan put in grimly.

It was a blessed thing that none of us had a bird's-eye view of that same
water. No man of force will listen when his mind is made up, and perhaps
it is just as well. For in that way things are accomplished. Clark
would not listen to Monsieur Vigo, and hence the financier had, perforce,