350 Stella M. Drumm should perish." The next day, Providence directed their forlorn steps to a solitary old buffalo bull, which they managed to kill, thus saving their lives. They arrived in St. Louis on April 30, 1813, and while happy to be back to civilization, McClellan was no more enriched in health or purse than when he wrote to his brother on December 20, 1810, that with nothing more than his gun he was beginning the world anew. On May 18, 1813, he was committed to prison for debt and was forced to take advantage of the bankruptcy act. 17 Here it was necessary to make another start, for he had accumulated nothing but debts, suffering and hardships for his several years in the Astorian expedition. The following January, Risdon H. Price of St. Louis furnished him with a stock of goods with which to open up a store at Cape Girardeau, Missouri, but ill health forced him to close out and return to St. Louis within six months' time. Then his friend, Abraham Gallatin, placed him on his farm called Marino, in St. Louis Coun- ty, and he recovered sufficiently to go back and forth to St. Louis. Later records show McClellan again in battle with the Indians, not as a soldier, but as a citizen, in the famous Missouri battle of the War of 1812 known as the "Fight at the Sink Hole." On May 24, 1815, the Indians made an attack on a detachment of soldiers from Fort Howard, killing the Captain, Lieutenant, five privates and one citizen, besides wounding a number of soldiers and two of the citizens who came to the aid of the soldiers. The report of this affair says that Robert McClellan and other citizens deserved credit for their spirited exer- tions. 18 About this time he seems to have been conducting horse races, at least he had two race horses, the more famous one being called "Plough Boy." At the time of 17 Missouri Gazetete, May 29, 1813. ^Missouri Gazette, May 27, 1815.
