kept the party in heart and enabled them to persevere. However,
persevere they did, and at last, on February 23, they came in
sight of the town of Vincennes. They captured a Creole who was
out shooting ducks, and from him learned that their approach was
utterly unsuspected, and that there were many Indians in town.

Clark was now in some doubt as to how to make his fight. The
British regulars dwelt in a small fort at one end of the town,
where they had two light guns; but Clark feared lest, if he made
a sudden night attack, the townspeople and Indians would from
sheer fright turn against him. He accordingly arranged, just
before he himself marched in, to send in the captured
duck-hunter, conveying a warning to the Indians and the Creoles
that he was about to attack the town, but that his only quarrel
was with the British, and that if the other inhabitants would
stay in their own homes they would not be molested. Sending the
duck-hunter ahead, Clark took up his march and entered the town
just after nightfall. The news conveyed by the released hunter
astounded the townspeople, and they talked it over eagerly, and
were in doubt what to do. The Indians, not knowing how great
might be the force that would assail the town, at once took
refuge in the neighboring woods, while the Creoles retired to
their own houses. The British knew nothing of what had happened
until the Americans had actually entered the streets of the
little village. Rushing forward, Clark's men soon penned the
regulars within their fort, where they kept them surrounded all
night. The next day a party of Indian warriors, who in the
British interest had been ravaging the settlements of Kentucky,
arrived and entered the town, ignorant that the Americans had
captured it. Marching boldly forward to the fort, they suddenly