Without waiting for an answer, he plunged into the water, and they followed him with a cheer, in Indian file.

Before the third man had entered the water he halted and told one of his officers [Footnote: Bowman] to close the rear with twenty-five men, and to put to death any man who refused to march; and the whole line cheered him again.
Then came the most trying time of the whole march.

Before them lay a broad sheet of water, covering what was known as the Horse Shoe Plain; the floods had made it a shallow lake four miles across, unbroken by so much as a handsbreadth of dry land.

On its farther side was a dense wood.

Clark led breast high in the water with fifteen or twenty of the strongest men next him.