Some young creoles, gay with drink and the stimulating effect of fight, had bound the poor fellows and were firing from behind them! Of course the commander promptly put an end to this cruelty; but they considered it exquisite fun while it lasted.

It was in broad daylight, and they knew that the English in the fort could see what they were doing.
"It's shameful to treat prisoners in this way," said Clark.

"I will not permit it.

Shoot the next man that offers to do such a thing!" One of the creole youths, a handsome, swarthy Adonis in buckskin, tossed his shapely head with a debonair smile and said: "To be sure, mon Colonel! but what have they been doing to us?
We have amused them all winter; it's but fair that they should give us a little fun now." Clark shrugged his broad shoulders and passed on.

He understood perfectly what the people of Vincennes had suffered under Hamilton's brutal administration.
At nine o'clock an order was passed to cease firing, and a flag of truce was seen going from Clark's headquarters to the fort.