The seven months intervening between the capture of Kaskaskia and the final march against Vincennes seem quiet and uneventful by comparison with the more brilliant performances of the campaign, but during that time, Clark was demonstrating in another way his eminent capacity for the work at hand. The region north of the Ohio had to be held as well as captured, and the establishing of amicable relations with the French and Indian inhabitants were quite as essential as spectacular victories when it came to permanent possession. The policy observed toward the French has already been indicated briefly. It was, in the first instance, the cultivation of a wholesome fear, by which Clark gained and held the ascendancy, and, in the second, an exercise of justice and friendliness that quite won the simple-minded Gallic woodsmen, who had no great reason to love English rule. A more difficult task was to establish an influence with the Indians, who were not only many in number, but separated into tribes and distributed over a vast territory, and who, in large part, had already come under English influence. It was here that Clark revealed a sagacity of method that would hardly have been possible to one with a less intimate knowledge of Indian character. In his "memoir", he devotes considerable space to these Indian transactions, affording interesting glimpses of this sort of diplomacy and of the characters of both Clark and the Savages. The thing that made it possible was the bold inroad, the vigor and the decisive success of the "Big Knives," as Americans were called. The French and Indians were closely in touch, and the news of the operations at the French settlements not only speedily traveled far and wide through the wilderness, but also was made duly impressive by the French traders, who in this respect became valuable allies to the conquerors. As a consequence, the various tribes, ignorant of the invader's real force and apprehensive of his power, took the first step toward conciliation, and, as we are told, "came in great numbers to Cahokia in order to make treaties of peace with us." (Clark's Memoir)