"... I Viewed this Sheet of water for some time with Distrust," Clark wrote in his _Memoir_, "but accusing myself of Doubting I amediately Set to work without holding any consultation about it or suffering anybody else to do so in my presence ordered a perogue amediately built and acted as though crossing the water would be only a piece of diversion.... My aneziety [anxiety] to cross this place continually increased as I saw that it would at once fling us into a situation of folorn hope as all Ideas of a Retreat would in some Measure be done away that if the Men began after this was accomplished to think seriously of what they had really suffered that they prefer^d Risking any seeming difficulty that might probably turn out favourable than to attempt to Retreat when they would be certain of Experiencing what they had already felt and if the weather should but Freeze altogether impracticable, except the Ice would bear them." The heroism of Clark's crossing of the Little Wabash has been retold on a thousand pages but it has rarely been suggested that he hurried into these dangers eagerly because they would serve to thwart any hope of retreat. He not only "burned his bridges," but hastened impetuously across waters that could never be bridged, in the hope that they would freeze and cut off all dreams of retreat. This memoir, let it again be remarked, was written many years after the event--after Clark saw his great feat somewhat in the light we see it today. His letter to Mason, however, was written in the same year that the march was made; if not so self-laudatory, it is as interesting as the memoir, and perhaps more authentic. He thus described the crossing in that document: "This [flood] would have been enough to have stopped any set of men not in the same temper that we were. But in three days we contrived to cross by building a large canoe, ferried across the two channels; the rest of the way we waded, building scaffolds at each to lodge our baggage on until the horses crossed to take them." Bowman's record is that of the soldier: "14th. Finished the canoe and put her into the river about 4 o'clock in the afternoon. 15th. Ferried across the two Wabashes, it being then five miles in water to the opposite hills, where we encamped. Still raining. Orders not to fire any guns for the future, but in case of necessity."