"
"I WILL get to Vincennes," said Colonel Clark, so gently that Monsieur
Vigo knew he meant it. "I will SWIM to Vincennes."
Monsieur Vigo raised his hands to heaven. The three of us went out of
the door and walked. There was a snowy place in front of the church all
party-colored like a clown's coat,--scarlet capotes, yellow capotes, and
blue capotes, and bright silk handkerchiefs. They surrounded the
Colonel. Pardieu, what was he to do now? For the British governor and
his savages were coming to take revenge on them because, in their
necessity, they had declared for Congress. Colonel Clark went silently
on his way to the gate; but Monsieur Vigo stopped, and Kaskaskia heard,
with a shock, that this man of iron was to march against Vincennes.
The gates of the fort were shut, and the captains summoned. Undaunted
woodsmen as they were, they were lukewarm, at first, at the idea of this
march through the floods. Who can blame them? They had, indeed,
sacrificed much. But in ten minutes they had caught his enthusiasm
(which is one of the mysteries of genius). And the men paraded in the
snow likewise caught it, and swung their hats at the notion of taking the
Hair Buyer.
"'Tis no news to me," said Terence, stamping his feet on the flinty
ground; "wasn't it Davy that pointed him out to us and the hair liftin'
from his head six months since?"
"Und you like schwimmin', yes?" said Swein Poulsson, his face like the
rising sun with the cold.
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