For four days they waited
there for the flood to retire, with practically nothing to eat; but the
rain continued and the flood increased, and Clark, finally, in
desperation, plunged into the water and called to his men to follow. All
day they waded, and toward evening reached a small patch of dry ground,
where they spent a miserable night. At sunrise Clark started on again,
through icy water waist-deep, this time with the stern command to shoot
the first laggard. Some of the men failed and sank beneath the waves, to
be rescued by the stronger ones, and by the middle of the afternoon they
had all got safe to land. By good fortune, they captured some Indian
squaws with a canoe-load of food, and had their first meal in two days.
Soon afterwards the sun came out, and they saw before them the walls of
the fort they had come to capture.
The British had no suspicion of their danger, and they thought the first
patter of bullets against the palisades the usual friendly salute from
an Indian hunting party. But they were soon undeceived, and answered the
rifles with ineffective fire from their two small cannon. All night the
fight continued, and at dawn an Indian war-party, which had been
ravaging the Kentucky settlements, entered the town, ignorant that the
Americans had captured it. Marching up to the fort, they suddenly found
themselves surrounded and seized.
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