having more than treble Clark's force, he could hardly have
failed to win the victory; but the season was late and the
journey so difficult that he did not believe it could be taken.
Accordingly he disbanded the Indians and sent some of his troops
back to Detroit, announcing that when spring came he would march
against Clark in Illinois.

If Clark in turn had awaited the blow he would have surely met
defeat; but he was a greater man than his antagonist, and he did
what the other deemed impossible.

Finding that Hamilton had sent home some of his troops and
dispersed all his Indians, Clark realized that his chance was to
strike before Hamilton's soldiers assembled again in the spring.
Accordingly he gathered together the pick of his men, together
with a few Creoles, one hundred and seventy all told, and set out
for Vincennes. At first the journey was easy enough, for they
passed across the snowy Illinois prairies, broken by great
reaches of lofty woods. They killed elk, buffalo, and deer for
food, there being no difficulty in getting all they wanted to
eat; and at night they built huge fires by which to sleep, and
feasted "like Indian war-dancers," as Clark said in his report.

But when, in the middle of February, they reached the drowned
lands of the Wabash, where the ice had just broken up and
everything was flooded, the difficulties seemed almost
insuperable, and the march became painful and laborious to a
degree. All day long the troops waded in the icy water, and at
night they could with difficulty find some little hillock on
which to sleep. Only Clark's indomitable courage and cheerfulness