For seven days we had always the same answer to our questions given by the little doctor, with cheery air, and sympathetic expression--"C'est impossible à dire, Monsieur, il faut avoir la patience."
Late on the eighth night, Father Gibault came to me, his gentle face beaming with pleasure, to announce that the crisis had been favorably passed, and that with no relapse, Ellen would soon be as strong or stronger than before.
The most hazardous part of our enterprise lay yet before us--the taking of Vincennes, the real key to the Northwest, without which we could not long hold our position at Kaskaskia and Cahokia. And every day the English commandant, Abbott, might return from Detroit with reënforcements for the fort, which was far stronger and better equipped than the almost abandoned one at Kaskaskia. Moreover we could not hope so easily to overawe and win the larger and more mixed population of the town of Vincennes, which had fallen more directly under British influence.
Colonel Clark had conceived that his best hope was to make the Kaskaskians believe his riflemen the most formidable of warriors, and to lead them to think that he could summon from our recently established forts on the Ohio any number of reënforcements he might need. So we drilled and mustered the men and made pretense of sending couriers to our forts, till the Kaskaskians imagined us to be but the vanguard of an army. Their fears were aroused for friends and relatives at Vincennes, and Father Gibault himself offered to proceed to that town under an escort of Colonel Clark's troops, to counsel submission and alliance. Clark accepted his offer with apparent indifference, but secret joy, put me in command of Father Gibault's escort, and bade me gather all the information possible, in regard to the condition of the fort, the feeling of the people toward the English, and everything I thought might be useful in case we should have to storm or besiege the place.
Still our amazing good luck attended us. The logic of Father Gibault, and the natural preference of the people for peace--which made a change of masters a matter of secondary importance--proved irresistible. The citizens assembled willingly in the church, swore allegiance to Virginia, elected a town officer favorable to our interests, and allowed us to garrison the fort, and raise our standards over it. Father Gibault carried the news of our third bloodless victory back to Clark, and a week later Captain Helm arrived to take command of the garrison of five Americans, and about a score of French recruits. Colonel Clark had given him the large sounding title of "Governor-General of Indian affairs on the Wabash," and had charged him with a characteristic answer to Tabac--the head chief of the Piankeshaws, who had visited us at Vincennes, and arrogantly commanded us to convey a defiant message to the chief of the Long-Knives.