In their belts they carried the scalps
of the settlers--men, women and children--they had slain, and,
infuriated at the sight, the Americans tomahawked the savages, one after
another, before the eyes of the British.
Then Clark sent to the fort a peremptory summons to surrender, adding,
that "his men were eager to avenge the murder of their relatives and
friends and would welcome an excuse to storm the fort." To the British,
it seemed a choice between surrender and massacre. They had seen the
bloody vengeance wreaked upon their Indian allies, and they had every
reason to believe that they would be dealt with in the same manner,
since it was they who had set the Indians on. Clark was himself, of
course, in desperate straits, without means for carrying on a successful
siege, but the British were far from suspecting this, and at ten o'clock
on the morning of February 25, 1779, marched out and stacked arms, while
Clark fired a salute of thirteen guns in honor of the colonies, from
whose possession the Northwest was never again to pass.
For eight years longer, Clark devoted his life to protecting the border
from British and Indian invasion. The war over, he returned to Kentucky,
and took up his abode in a little log cabin on the Ohio near Louisville.
He was without means, and a horrible accident marred his last years,
for, while alone in his cabin, he was stricken with paralysis, and fell
with one of his legs in the old-fashioned fire-place.
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