"Swimmin', is it?" said Terence, "sure, the divil made worse things than
wather. And Hamilton's beyant."
"I reckon that'll fetch us through," Bill Cowan put in grimly.
It was a blessed thing that none of us had a bird's-eye view of that same
water. No man of force will listen when his mind is made up, and perhaps
it is just as well. For in that way things are accomplished. Clark
would not listen to Monsieur Vigo, and hence the financier had, perforce,
to listen to Clark. There were several miracles before we left.
Monsieur Vigo, for instance, agreed to pay the expenses of the
expedition, though in his heart he thought we should never get to
Vincennes. Incidentally, he was never repaid. Then there were the
French--yesterday, running hither and thither in paroxysms of fear;
to-day, enlisting in whole companies, though it were easier to get to the
wild geese of the swamps than to Hamilton. Their ladies stitched colors
day and night, and presented them with simple confidence to the Colonel
in the church. Twenty stands of colors for 170 men, counting those who
had come from Cahokia. Think of the industry of it, of the enthusiasm
behind it! Twenty stands of colors! Clark took them all, and in due
time it will be told how the colors took Vincennes. This was because
Colonel Clark was a man of destiny.
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