"I will go."
Every eye was turned toward the speaker, James Kennerly, the Governor's private secretary, the cousin of Julia and brother of Harriet of Fincastle. The same spirit was there that led a whole generation of his people to perish in the Revolution. His father had been dragged from the field of Cowpens wrapped in the flag he had rescued.
At the risk of his life, when no one else would venture, the faithful secretary went up the Mississippi to bring in the absent tribes. Black-eyed Elise, the daughter of Dr. Saugrain, wept all night to think of it. Governor Clark himself had introduced Elise to his secretary. How she counted the days!
"The Chippewas would have murdered me but for the timely arrival of the Sioux," said Kennerly, on his safe return with the band of Rising Moose.
"The Red Coats are gone!" said Rising Moose. "I rush in. I put out the fire. I save the fort."
Without waiting for troops from St. Louis, forty-eight hours after the news of peace the British had evacuated Prairie du Chien. A day or two later they returned, took the cannon, and set fire to the fort with the American flag flying.
Into the burning fort went Rising Moose, secured the flag and an American medal, and brought them down to St. Louis.
While interpreters were speeding by horse and boat over half a hundred trails, Manuel Lisa, sleepless warden of the plains, arrived with forty-three chiefs and head men of the Missouri Sioux. Wild Indians who never before had tasted bread, brought down in barges camped on the margin of the Mississippi, the great council chiefs of their tribes, moody, unjoyous, from the Stony Mountains. For weeks other deputations followed, to the number of two thousand, to make treaties and settle troubles arising out of the War of 1812.
Whether even yet a council could be held was a query in Governor Clark's mind. Across the neighbouring Mississippi, Sacs, Foxes, Iowas were raiding still, c
