The letter to Mason says it was the 5th.] All the inhabitants escorted them out of the village, and the Jesuit priest, Gibault, gave them absolution at parting.
The route by which they had to go was two hundred and forty miles in length.

It lay through a beautiful and well watered country, of groves and prairies; but at that season the march was necessarily attended with the utmost degree of hardship and fatigue.

The weather had grown mild, so that there was no suffering from cold; but in the thaw the ice on the rivers melted, great freshets followed, and all the lowlands and meadows were flooded.

Clark's great object was to keep his troops in good spirits.

Of course he and the other officers shared every hardship and led in every labor.