The Conquest. Eva Emery Dye
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punishment. On the contrary, those who are the friends of liberty may depend on being well treated, and I once more request them to keep out of the streets. Every one I find in arms on my arrival I shall treat as an enemy.
George Rogers Clark."
"Take this. Tell the people my quarrel is with the British. We shall be in Vincennes by the rising of the moon. Prepare dinner."
The messenger flew ahead; upon the captured horses of other duck-hunters Clark mounted his officers. It was just at nightfall when they entered the lower gate.
"Silence those drunken Indians," roared Hamilton at the sound of guns. But the Frenchmen themselves turned their rifles on the fort.
Under the friendly light of the new moon Clark and his men threw up an intrenchment, and from behind its shelter in fifteen minutes the skilled volleys of the border rifle had silenced two of the cannon.
"Surrender!" was Clark's stentorian summons at daylight.
Hamilton, with the blood of many a borderer on his head—what had he to hope? Hot and hotter rained the bullets.
"Give me three days to consider."
"Not an hour!" was Clark's reply.
"Let me fight with you?" said The Tobacco's son, the principal chief on the Wabash.
"No," answered Clark, "you sit back and watch us. Americans do not hire Indians to fight their battles."
Amazed, the Indians fell back and waited.
The fort fell, and with it British dominion in the northwest territory. Then the galley hove in sight and the flag waved above Vincennes.
"A convoy up de rivière on its way with goods, from le Detroit," whispered a Frenchman. Directly Clark dispatched his boatmen to capture the flotilla.
"Sur la feuille ron—don don don," the voyageurs were singing.
Merrily rowing down the river came the British, when suddenly out from a bend swung three boats. "Surrender!"
Amid the wild huzzas of Vincennes the Americans returned, bringing the captive convoy with fifty thousand dollars' worth of food, clothing, and ammunition, and forty prisoners.
With a heart full of thanksgiving Clark paid and clothed his men out of that prize captured on the Wabash.
"Let the British flag float a few days," he said. "I may entertain some of the hair-buying General's friends."
Very soon painted red men came striding in with bloody scalps dangling at their belts. But as each one entered, red-handed from murder, Clark's Long Knives shot him down before the face of the guilty Hamilton. Fifty fell before he lowered the British flag. But from that day the red men took a second thought before accepting rewards for the scalps of white men.
"Now what shall you do with me?" demanded Hamilton.
"You? I shall dispatch you as a prisoner of war to Virginia."
X
THE CITY OF THE STRAIT
Clark was not an hour too soon. Indians were already on the march.
"Hamilton is taken!"
Wabasha, the Sioux, from the Falls of St. Anthony, heard, and stopped at Prairie du Chien.
"Hamilton is taken!"
Matchekewis, the gray-haired chief of the Chippewas, coming down from Sheboygan, heard the astounding word and fell back to St. Joseph's.
The great Hamilton carried away by the rebels! The Indians were indeed cowed. The capture of Hamilton completed Clark's influence. The great Red-Coat sent away as a prisoner of war was an object-lesson the Indians could not speedily forget.
Out of Hamilton's captured mail, Clark discovered that the French in the neighbourhood of Detroit were not well-affected toward the British, and were ready to revolt whenever favourable opportunity offered.
"Very well, then, Detroit next!"
But Clark had more prisoners than he knew what to do with.
"Here," said he, to the captured Detroiters, "I am anxious to restore you to your families. I know you are unwilling instruments in this war, but your great King of France has allied himself with the Americans. Go home, bear the good news, bid your friends welcome the coming of their allies, the Americans. And tell Captain Lernoult I am glad to hear that he is constructing new works at Detroit. It will save us Americans some expense in building."
The City of the Strait was lit with bonfires.
"We have taken an oath not to fight the Virginians," said the paroled Frenchmen.
The people rejoiced when they heard of Hamilton's capture; they hated his tyranny, and, certain of Clark's onward progress, prepared a welcome reception for "les Américains."
"See," said the mistress of a lodging house to Captain Lernoult. "See what viands I haf prepared for le Colonel Clark." And the Captain answered not a word. Baptiste Drouillard handed him a printed proclamation of the French alliance.
Everywhere Detroiters were drinking, "Success to the Thirteen United States!"
"Success to Congress and the American arms! I hope the Virginians will soon be at Detroit!"
"Now Colonel Butler and his scalping crew will meet their deserts. I know the Colonel for a coward and I'll turn hangman for him!"
"Don't buy a farm now. When the Virginians come you can get one for nothing."
"See how much leather I am tanning for the Virginians. When they come I shall make a great deal of money."
"Town and country kept three days in feasting and diversions," wrote Clark to Jefferson, "and we are informed that the merchants and others provided many necessaries for us on our arrival." But this the Colonel did not learn until long after.
Left alone in command, with only eighty men in the garrison, Lernoult could do nothing. Bitterly he wrote to his commander-in-chief, "The Canadians are rebels to a man. In building the fort they aid only on compulsion."
Even at Montreal the Frenchmen kept saying, "A French fleet will certainly arrive and retake the country"; and Haldimand, Governor General, was constantly refuting these rumours.
"Now let me help you," again pleaded The Tobacco's son to Clark at Vincennes.
"I care not whether you side with me or not," answered the American Colonel. "If you keep the peace, very well. If not you shall suffer for your mischief."
Such a chief! Awed, the Indians retired to their camps and became spectators. To divert Clark, the British officers urged these Indians to attack Vincennes.
The Tobacco's son sent back reply, "If you want to fight the Bostons at St. Vincent's you must cut your way through them, as we are Big Knives, too!" Their fame spread to Superior and the distant Missouri.
"In the vicinity of Chicago the rebels are purchasing horses to mount their cavalry."
"The Virginians are building boats to take Michilimackinac."
"They are sending belts to the Chippewas and Ottawas."
"The Virginians are at Milwaukee."
So the rumours flew along the Lakes, terrifying every Briton into strengthening his stronghold. And this, for the time, kept them well at home.
"Had I but three hundred I could take Detroit," said Clark. Every day now came the word from the French of the city, "Come—come to our relief."
"But Vincennes must be garrisoned. My men are too few."
Then