During their first six days this remarkable army marched over one hundred and seventy-four miles, averaging twenty-eight miles a day. The hardest part of the trip, however, lay before them——the sixty-three miles to Vincennes. They would have four rivers to cross—two branches of the Little Wabash, the Embarrass and the Great Wabash, all of them now swollen by floods. When the army reached the two Little Wabash branches, normally three miles apart, the men were stunned to see a sheet of water almost five miles across, with no dry banks or channels for either branch in sight. The shallowest place was about three feet deep; what the greatest depth was, no man knew. Colonel Clark ordered his soldiers to halt while he considered what to do. For a few minutes he gazed at the great expanse of water, then ordered some of the men to build a pirogue. This took only a day to build. Then he ordered a few others to explore these drowned lands and if possible, find a dry camping spot on the far bank of the second branch. Once they found a trail, they marked it with blazes on all trees above the waterline. But how to get the loaded pack horses across both branches of the river? The horses could wade to the first channel easily enough, but when in deep water they would have to swim, and they could not swim with their heavy packs. Once again Colonel Clark solved his new problem. He had his men build a scaffold in a shallow spot beyond the second river bank. When this was finished, the men unloaded the horses and moved the baggage over to the scaffold in their pirogue. Then they swam the horses through both channels, reloading the animals at the scaffold. They also ferried any ill, weak soldiers across both river branches. As Colonel Clark himself plunged into the water, he expected the rest of his army to follow him along the tree-blazed route. But the men hung back, complaining they were already cold and wet enough without wading another five miles. Suddenly Willie Watson, seeing Colonel Clark floundering through the water alone, seized Jim’s drum and started into the water, beating the drum as hard as he could. “Come on, you,” he called, beating a terrific roll. Jim plunged in right behind Willie, holding his rifle high above his head. Soon the water was up to Willie’s armpits. He pushed the drum down and sat on it, floating along and paddling the water with his drumsticks. “Come on, you fellows,” he called. “Somebody give me a push.” A French sergeant, almost six and a half feet tall, charged into the water, scooped up Willie and his drum, put him on his shoulders and shouted, “Advance!” Willie’s courageous antics turned the trick for Colonel Clark. While Willie played and sang at the top of his lungs, the rest of the soldiers waded into the water and did not turn back, though in some places the water came up to their chins. But no dry spot could be found, so they had to spend the night in shallow water without food.