THE MAN WITH THE IRON HAND

BY

JOHN CARL PARISH

La Salle took possession in the name of the King of France.

True Tales of the Great Valley

EDITED BY BENJAMIN F. SHAMBAUGH

The Man with the Iron Hand

BY

JOHN CARL PARISH

BOSTON AND NEW YORK

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

The Riverside Press Cambridge

1913

COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Published October 1913

Let us picture in imagination the history of the Great Valley of the Mississippi as a splendid drama enacted upon a giant stage which reaches from the Alleghanies to the Rockies and from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico and through which the Father of Waters sweeps majestically. Let us people this stage with real men and women—picturesque red men and no less interesting white men, Indians, Spaniards, Frenchmen, Englishmen, explorers, warriors, priests, voyageurs, coureurs de bois; fur traders, and settlers. Let the scenes be set about the lakes, along the rivers, among the hills, on the plains, and in the forests. Then, viewing this pageant of the past, let us write the true tales of the Great Valley as we write romance—with life, action, and color—that the history of our Great Valley may live.

Benjamin F. Shambaugh

AUTHOR’S PREFACE

The purpose of this book is to present in readable narrative form, yet with strict accuracy, some of the events which attended the coming of the French explorers into the Mississippi Valley, and to deal with these events as much as possible from the standpoint of the Indians whose country the white men entered. In other words, an effort has been made to place the reader in the position and environment of the native inhabitants in order that he may witness the coming of the whites through the eyes and minds of the Indians instead of viewing from the outside the exploration, by men of his own kind, of an unknown land peopled by a strange and vaguely understood race.

For the sake of preserving the standpoint of the Great Valley, the story of explorations is centered about Henry de Tonty—the “Man with the Iron Hand”—who, unlike his leader La Salle, remained in the valley of the Mississippi and in close relations with its inhabitants for a quarter of a century.

This book is not in any sense fiction. It has been written directly from the original sources and from the best information available upon the life of the Indian at the time of the arrival of the whites. The sources consist mainly of the letters and relations of Father Marquette and other Jesuits, of Joliet and La Salle and Tonty, and the writings of the various friars, priests, and soldiers who accompanied them. A few fragments are accessible in manuscript form only; but the most important material has been compiled, edited, and published by Pierre Margry, John Gilmary Shea, B. F. French, Reuben Gold Thwaites, and others.

Where conversations are given they have been taken from the reports of those who held them or heard them. Usually they have been translated literally from the French records. Sometimes the direct discourse has been turned into indirect, or abridged, and in a few cases the indirect has been turned into the direct form.

The writings of the early explorers and priests abound in descriptive details of a climatic, physical, or personal nature; and this information, wherever illuminative, has been drawn upon to reproduce as vividly and as truly as possible the conditions surrounding the events described.

There is one secondary writer who will always deserve the gratitude of the student of subjects connected with the French and Indians in Canada and the Mississippi Valley, and acknowledgments are here made to Francis Parkman, not as a source of information—although his conclusions, drawn from an exhaustive study of original documents, are invaluable—but as a pioneer and unrivaled master in the field and a source of unfailing inspiration.

There are many persons who have aided the work in various ways, and their assistance has been duly appreciated; but space will permit the mention of only two of them. The helpful criticism and suggestions of my wife throughout the entire preparation of the volume have materially benefited the text; and the constant advice and encouragement of the editor of the series, Dr. Benjamin F. Shambaugh, and his careful editorial revision of the manuscript have added much to the value of the book.

John Carl Parish.

Denver, Colorado

CONTENTS

The frontispiece is from a painting by Frank T. Merrill

The Man with the Iron Hand

CHAPTER I

THE CAPTIVE

A sudden, far-off cry broke the stillness that had brooded over the long, low Indian lodges on the hill. Instantly the whole village awoke to intense excitement. Women dropped their work by the fireside; old men put away their long-stemmed pipes and leaped like young braves to the doors of the lodges; while in the fields young girls stood straight to listen. Again came the cry, but nearer now and as of many voices. From every lodge by the side of the river and on the hill came pouring the red-skinned villagers, their straight, black hair glistening in the sunlight. From the fields of corn and squashes and out from among the bean-vines came lithe maidens and sturdy Indian women; and from their play by the riverside naked children tumbled breathlessly into the open space before the lodges.

In the distance, with wild, triumphant cries, came the war party for which the women and old men of the village had waited so long. Now they could see the gay feathers that decorated the heads and the red paint that smeared the bodies of the returning braves. Now they caught sight of scalp-locks waved in the air; and in the midst of the throng of warriors they saw the figure of a strange Indian lad plodding along between two tall braves. “Scalps and a captive” went up the cry from the waiting villagers, and out into the open with shouts of welcome they poured to meet the home-coming band.

It was an occasion long to be remembered. The women of the tribe gathered in the open, and with weird songs and wild music, with arms flung high and feet shuffling and leaping, and with bodies twisting and bending, danced the scalp dance.

The captive was only a boy, who did not speak the language of the Illinois into whose triumphant hands he had fallen. He was a stranger in the midst of enemies. Sometimes, as he well knew, in the camps of the Peoria tribe, when darkness had fallen after a day of battle, captives were burned alive. Such a scene his terrified mind now pictured. He imagined himself bound at the foot of a stake in the midst of a clearing. He could see flames reach out hungrily and consume the dried sticks and underbrush. Each second they mounted higher, throwing a circle of light on a close-packed crowd of heartless and rejoicing Indians, who watched the growing flames leap up and lick at the limbs of the helpless captive tied to the stake.

Perhaps, if he had been an Iroquois, burning would have been the young boy’s fate. But on this particular occasion the Iowa River, which ran past the Peoria village, witnessed no such barbaric torturings, for the wife of the chief claimed the captive and took him to her own lodge, where in due time and with proper ceremony he was adopted as a member of the chief’s family.

It was in some such train of events that this captive Indian boy came, with strange words upon his lips and fear in his heart, to live with the Peoria tribe of Illinois Indians. He had many forebodings, but with all his Indian imagination he could not foresee that from this village of his adoption he would set out upon a series of adventures such as no boy or man of his tribe had yet experienced—that he would pass through countries and among people like none he had ever known and come upon dangers that would make his capture in battle seem as tame as a day’s fishing.

CHAPTER II

THE COMING OF THE STRANGERS

It was many days later, and the quiet and beauty of June had come upon the Mississippi Valley. From in front of the Peoria lodges on the banks of the Iowa River, a slender trail slipped off across the prairies through two leagues of sunshine over a country fair to see, and came at length to the west bank of the Mississippi. But on this summer day no Indian traveled the pathway that led from the village. There was no one in the streets of the Indian town, and no movement to be seen save the slow rising of smoke from the tops of the three hundred lodges which dotted the hill like so many long arbors, with rounded roofs made waterproof by layers of plaited rush mats. But from the lodges came the murmur of voices, for inside the windowless walls the Indians of the Peoria tribe were gathered.

Down the center line within each lodge four or five fires were burning, and beside each fire two families made their home. Indian women squatted by the smouldering embers, or pounded corn into meal in stone bowls; while here and there on rush mats or on the dirt floor sat the men with tattooed and sinewy bodies, smoking long-stemmed pipes or mending bows. Against the walls brown papooses, on end in their cases, blinked at the light from doorway and fires or gazed stolidly and silently at nothing. Life among the lodges, except in time of war, was uneventful. Nor was there on this day in late June any reason to look for events other than those which had fallen upon the tribe for generations.

Then of a sudden the village was startled by a shout. It was not that peculiar cry of war which sometimes echoed along the valley, nor yet the cry of returning hunters or warriors. It had an odd new note in it that halted the busy work of the Indian women and woke to activity the dreaming braves. Pipes were laid aside, stones with which the squaws were grinding corn fell quiet into the bowls, and papooses were forgotten as the villagers swarmed out of the lodges into the sunlight.

Strange was the sight which met their curious gaze. There in the pathway that came over from the Mississippi were two men. The Peorias had seen no Indians like these. Although it was the month of June the strangers were covered from head to foot with garments of cloth. One, a man yet in his twenties, was dressed in a coat and heavy breeches; the other, a quietfaced man somewhat older than his companion, wore a long black robe, gathered about his waist by a cord and reaching to his feet. Swung from this cord was a string of large beads from which hung a cross.

Unannounced these strange beings had appeared in the pathway before the village almost as if dropped by some spirit from the sky. No paint was on their pale faces, no feathers in their hair. They carried no weapons and displayed neither the pipe of war with its red paint and feathers nor the pipe of peace that told of the coming of friends. Yet there were those among the Indian villagers who doubtless knew whence the strangers came. Perhaps among them were some of the Illinois warriors who, six years before, had made a visit to a group of cabins many leagues to the north, on the shore of Lake Superior, and who had there seen the energetic fur traders, with their blanket coats and stout breeches, and the Jesuit priests who, dressed like this man in black gown and hood, had pushed their way into the villages all about the Great Lakes. Perhaps in the journeys which the Peorias sometimes made to the village of their Kaskaskia brothers over on the Illinois River, they had heard of the men with white faces who lived near Green Bay and at the Straits of Mackinac.

The word quickly passed among the men of the Peoria village that these two strangers were of the great French nation from over the sea. Moreover, since it was customary for the Indian to be hospitable to peaceable visitors, these two men who had appeared so unexpectedly in the pathway must be fitly welcomed. Four Indians—old men with authority in the tribe—stepped out from the crowd and advanced down the path. They walked slowly, two of them holding above their heads in the glowing sunlight the calumets or pipes of peace decorated with feathers and finely ornamented. Without a word they drew near the strangers, holding their pipes to the sky as if offering them to the sun to smoke. Finally they stopped and gazed attentively, yet courteously, upon the white men.

Then spoke up the man in the black gown. “Who are you?” he said in a broken Algonquian tongue.

“We are Illinois,” the old men answered. There was pride in their tones, for the name Illinois means “the men”—as if no other Indians were so worthy to be called men. Then they gave the white men the pipes of peace to smoke and invited them to visit the lodges.

Together the Indians and their guests walked up the path to the village. At the door of one of the lodges was an old man who stood naked and erect, with hands extended to the sun. Toward this lodge the strangers made their way; and as they drew near, the old man spoke:

“How beautiful is the sun, O Frenchmen, when thou comest to visit us! All our village awaits thee and thou shalt enter all our lodges in peace.”

Within the lodge were many of the tribe, and in their minds was great wonder as they looked upon the curious men from the East. The elders of the tribe again gave to the visitors the pipe of peace; and when they had smoked, the Indians also drew upon the calumet, thus binding upon themselves peace and good will to their strange guests.

A little way off was a group of lodges where lived the greatest chief of the tribe. When he heard of the coming of the white men, he sent to invite them to his lodge. The strangers accepted, and a great retinue attended them as they passed through the village. Eager to see such unusual visitors, the Indians followed them in throngs. Some lay in the grass and watched them as they passed by; others ran ahead, and then walked back to meet them. Yet without noise and with great courtesy they looked upon the two white men. Finally they all came to the lodge of the Peoria chief.

The chief stood in his doorway, while on either side of him stood an old man. Naked were the three, and up toward the sun they held the long-stemmed calumet. With a few dignified words the chief drew the white men into his lodge, where again they smoked together in friendship. Then silence fell upon those within the lodge, for the time had come when the strangers should tell of their mission. Impassive but full of expectancy, the Indians waited. It was the man in the black gown who spoke; and after the manner of the Indians he gave them four presents and with each present he gave them a message.

Silently the red men listened as with his first present he told them of the object of his coming. He was Jacques Marquette, a priest of the Order of Jesuits, and his companion was Louis Joliet, a fur trader and explorer of the great French nation. They had come journeying peaceably to visit the tribes that dwelt upon the Mississippi, and they were eager to go as far as the sea into which the Great River flowed.

Again he gave them a present and told them of the God of the white men, who had created the Indian as well, and who had sent the black-robed priests into the far corners of the earth to tell the Indians of his glory. Then a third present he gave to the Peorias and told them of the great chief of the French who sent word that he had conquered the fierce Iroquois and made peace everywhere. With the fourth and last present he begged the Peorias to tell him of the Indian nations to the south along the windings of the great river and beside the sea into which it flowed.

When the priest ceased speaking, the chief of the Peorias rose. Beside him stood an Indian boy of about ten years. He was not a Peoria, but the captive who had been taken in battle and adopted into the chief’s family. Placing his hand on the boy’s head, the chief spoke these words:—

“I thank thee, Black Gown, and thee, O Frenchman, for having taken so much trouble to come to visit us. Never has the earth been so beautiful or the sun so bright as to-day. Never has our river been so calm or so free from rocks, which thy canoes have removed in passing. Never has our tobacco tasted so good or our corn appeared so fine as we now see it. Here is my son whom I give thee to show thee my heart.”

Thus the captive Indian lad came to be one of the party of explorers and to share their strange wanderings and adventures in the Great Valley.

As the priest spoke of the God of the French who had sent his men across seas and into forests, the Indian chief, and those who sat with him, thought of their own manitous and gods, and of their own medicine men who understood and knew the powerful spirits, and by prayers and incantations could influence them to bring sunshine to ripen the corn and rain in time of drought, to guard them in warfare, and to cure them in sickness. This black-robed priest must be a great medicine man in the lodges of the whites; and so the chief said:—

“I beg thee to have pity on me and on my nation. It is thou who knowest the Spirit who made us all. It is thou who speakest to Him and hearest his word. Beg Him to give me life and health and to come and dwell with us that we may know Him.”

Then the chief gave the priest a pipe like that which the two old men had carried. It was carved, and decked with the plumage of birds, and its stem was as long as a tall brave’s arm. It was a token of peace which the white men would often need in the countries they were about to explore. With this present the Peoria spoke of the love he bore for the great chief of the French.

With another present he warned the white men of the dangers ahead of them; and he begged them not to go farther. Tribes fierce and deadly lived toward the south, and other dangers more mysterious and awful lurked along the waters of the river. But the gentle-faced priest replied that he had no fear of death, saying that he counted no happiness greater than to die teaching of his God.

Amazed were all the Indians who sat in the chiefs lodge and heard this answer. To scalp a foe in honor of one’s manitou and to the glory of his nation seemed the height of joy and triumph; but they could not understand the courage of one who would willingly be scalped or tortured in honor of his God. So they made no reply and the council closed.

Meanwhile among the lodges Indian women and girls had busied themselves in preparing a feast for the strangers. Papooses were hung up out of the way on trees or leaned against the lodge walls while their mothers brought corn and meat, stirred the fires, and killed a dog for the distinguished guests. A woman whose nose had been cut off as a punishment for unfaithfulness to her husband came out of a near-by lodge. Young girls, whose daily duty it was to care for the rows of corn and beans in the fields, now helped to bring into the lodge the food which the women had made ready.

The first course at this Peoria feast was sagamite, a dish made from the meal of Indian corn and seasoned with fat. It was served on a great wooden platter. An Indian, acting as master of ceremonies, took a spoon made from the bone of a buffalo, filled it with sagamite, and presented it several times to the mouths of the strangers as one would feed children. Then they brought, fresh from the fires which the Indian women had tended, a dish containing three fish. The same Indian took the fish, removed the bones, blew upon some pieces to cool them, and fed them to the guests. The third course, which was served only upon rare and highly important occasions, consisted of the meat of a dog freshly killed. To the great surprise of the Indians the white men did not eat of this dish, and so it was taken away. The fourth course was buffalo meat, the choicest morsels of which were given to the priest and his companion.

After this elaborate feast, the Peorias took their visitors through the whole village, and the open-mouthed and open-hearted Indians brought them gifts of their own make—belts and bracelets made from the hair of buffalo or bear and dyed red, yellow, and gray. At length when night came upon the Peoria lodges, Marquette and Joliet were made comfortable on beds of buffalo robes in the lodge of the chief.

In the afternoon of the next day the strangers departed from the Indian lodges on the Iowa River and followed the pathway back to the bank of the Mississippi; and with them, courteous to the last, went the chief and full six hundred members of the tribe. When they came out upon the river bank, the Indians gazed in wonder at the five white men who had been left by their leaders to guard two small canoes—small, indeed, in comparison with the great boats of the Peorias which, hollowed out of three-foot logs, were half a hundred feet long.

The sun was about halfway down the sky when the strangers embarked. The Peorias, gathered on the bank, looked on curiously as the two white men and the Indian boy joined their companions in the birch-bark canoes, pushed out from the shore, swung into the current, and paddled off downstream. Then they faced the dropping sun and walked back to the village. As they thought of the savage tribes to the south and the awful dangers of the river, they doubted greatly if the gallant strangers would again come to their village and pay them the visit which the black-robed priest had promised.

They did see these same voyagers again, but not in the village by the side of the Iowa River; for during that very summer the Peoria tribe moved. One day the Indian women stripped the lodge-poles, packed up the camp implements, loaded themselves with supplies of food and robes, and together with the men of the village started on a journey eastward which led them far beyond the Mississippi. On the banks of the Illinois River, not far from the lake that still bears their name, the Peoria women set up new lodges and kindled the fires that were to burn day and night in the new home. Farther up the same river another tribe of the Illinois Nation—the Kaskaskias—were living in a village on the north bank.

Between these two Illinois towns the young braves no doubt often passed during the summer of 1673; and as they sat by the fires of their Kaskaskia brothers and smoked the long calumets, the Peorias told of the coming of the whites to the village beyond the Mississippi and of their departure with the Indian boy to journey down the length of the mysterious river to the great salt sea of the south.

CHAPTER III

DOWN THE GREAT RIVER

A black-robed priest, a young fur trader, five Frenchmen, and a young Indian boy sat in two birch-bark canoes on the broad current of the Mississippi River one summer evening. Having eaten a hurried supper beside a camp-fire on the bank, they paddled on down the darkening river so that the fire might not betray them to Indian enemies. Night overtook them and they anchored their canoes in midstream. Leaving one man on guard, the rest of the party made themselves as comfortable as possible in the narrow boats and tried to get some sleep.

The sentinel sat silent in his canoe, but with every sense alert. Through the long hours of night he watched with keen eye for unnatural shadows in the dim light of moon or stars and listened for sound of paddle or stir of wild animals. The adventurers were in a strange country and they knew not what dangers might lurk beside them while they slept.

The Indian boy, into whose valley the strangers had come, knew the ways of the night upon river and shore, but he was now in strange company. It may be that he, too, was awake, thinking over in his childish heart the curious ways of these white men. The Peoria village where he had so lately made his home was many leagues up the river. What lands were they coming to? When would the monsters of the river, of whom his people had told him, swallow them, canoes and all, into a terrible death?

When a certain constellation crossed the zenith the sentinel reached over and waked one of his comrades, then joined the others in sleep. At length the darkness began to lift, as to the left the faint light of dawn crept up over the rocky bank of the river. Soon the Frenchmen awoke, took to their paddles, and began another day’s journey.

Each stroke of the paddles carried the Indian boy farther from his home and nearer the monsters of the great river. By training a keen observer, he looked up at a steep wall of rock and caught sight of two strange and fearsome figures. Terror possessed him, for he knew he was in the presence of the dread beings of which his people had warned him. There, painted on the rocks in red, black, and green colors, were two monsters as large as buffalo calves. They had faces like men, but with horrible red eyes, and beards like those of bull buffalo; and on their heads were horns like the horns of deer. Scales covered their bodies; and their tails were so long that they wound about the body and over the head and, going back between their legs, ended in the tail of a fish.

It was as if the Indian boy were alone with an evil spirit, for no Indian was near him. He could ask the white men no questions. They, too, now saw the dread animals; and with much pointing and excitement began to talk among themselves, but in a tongue the Indian boy could not understand. Not daring to look long at the pictured rock, he turned his face away and sat in his narrow seat uncomforted and filled with that mystic awe which only people of his own race could feel. The white men talked on as the canoes swept smoothly downstream.

Suddenly as they talked a dull roar met their ears, growing louder as they descended the river until they saw a great opening in the bank at the right and a broad river pour in from the northwest to join them. It was the Missouri coming down from the mountains a thousand miles away and hurling into the Mississippi a mass of mud and debris, huge branches, and even whole trees. The two canoes dodged here and there, while the men at the paddles, alert now and forgetful of painted dragons, drove their craft now to the right, now to the left, swerved to avoid a great tree, or paddled for their lives to outrace a mass of brush. Vigorous work alone saved them.

Out of danger, the adventurers fell to wondering from what lands came the mighty stream. The stout-hearted Marquette vowed to stem its powerful current at some future day and follow its waters to their source, thinking that he might thus find another stream which would take him westward into the great Vermilion Sea that lay on the road to China. But the Indian boy did not easily forget the monsters on the rocks, and he still looked about him with apprehensive glances.

It was not many leagues farther down the stream that the voyagers came to another of the fearful dangers of which the Peorias had warned them—a place in the river where, according to Indian legend, there lived a demon who devoured travelers and sucked them down into the troubled depths. As they approached the dreaded spot, they saw a fierce surging of the waters, driven with terrific force into a small cove. Rocks rose high out of the stream; and against these the river dashed mightily, tossing foam and spray into the air. Balked in their course, the waters paused, then hurled themselves down into a narrow channel.

To the Indian mind, which saw life and humanity, good spirits and bad, in all of nature, there was an evil spirit in these turbulent waters. It was with the eyes of his own race that the Indian boy now watched the high-tossed spray. But the two canoes passed by in safety and soon came to smoother waters.

Presently the voyagers drew near the broad mouth of the Ohio, in whose valley, raided from time to time by fierce tribes of the Iroquois, were the villages of the Shawnee Indians. Along the shores were canes and reeds that grew thick and high. Mosquitoes began to gather in swarms that made life miserable for the men as they toiled in the heat of the day. But following the way of the Indians of the Southern country, they raised above their canoes tents of canvas which sheltered them in part from both the mosquitoes and the burning sun.

So sailing, they came one day unexpectedly upon a group of armed Indians. Up rose Marquette and held high the pipe of peace, while Joliet and his comrades reached for their guns to be ready should an attack be made. This time, however, they were safe; for the Indians were only inviting them to come ashore and eat. The voyagers landed and were led to the village, where the Indians fed them upon buffalo meat and white plums.

It was evident that these Indians were acquainted with white men, and that they bought goods of traders from the East; for they had knives and guns and beads and cloth and hatchets and hoes, and even glass flasks for their powder. Venturesome Englishmen from the Atlantic Coast had perhaps sold them these things in exchange for furs. With the Spanish firmly settled in the Southwest, and the English—long-time enemies of France—pushing in from the East, it was high time that the French came down the river, if the Great Valley of the Mississippi were ever to be brought under the flag of France.

The Indians now told Marquette and Joliet that the great sea to the south was only ten days’ journey away; and so with renewed energy the band of eight set out once more in their canoes. Huge cottonwoods and elms now lined either shore, and bright-plumaged birds darted from limb to limb; while in the hidden prairies beyond could be heard the bellowing of wild buffalo.

As they drew near a village of Michigamea Indians, whose lodges were almost at the water’s edge, the voyagers heard the savage yells of warriors inciting one another to an attack. Soon they swarmed along the shore with bows and arrows, and with hatchets and great war clubs. In vain did Marquette hold up the calumet of peace. Downstream the Indians climbed into their long dugouts and pushed up to attack the strangers from below; while upstream other young warriors launched their wooden canoes and swept down the river with hoarse cries of battle. Hemmed in by the two war parties in boats, and with armed enemies howling along the river bank, death seemed very near to the Frenchmen. The warning words of the Peoria chief had told them of just such an end.

Perhaps the twinkling lights of the Canadian river towns and the smiling face of France had never seemed so far away as now in these untraveled stretches of the Great Valley. And the Indian lad—before him lay either death or captivity. In just such scenes as this he had passed from tribe to tribe. It may be that his young mind now carried him back to the village where the smoke rose from the lodges of his own people, where his own mother had unloosed the thongs that bound him to the cradle of his papoose days, and taught him to run over the green prairies and in the cool woods with the other lads, learning to draw a bow and trap wild creatures of the forest and roll about in the sun, naked and healthy and happy.

But this was not a time to think of other days. A handful of young braves threw themselves into the river to seize the small canoes of the white men; but finding the current too strong, they put back to the shore. One raised his club and hurled it at the black-robed priest. Whirling through the air it passed over the canoes and fell with a splash into the river. Nearer and nearer closed the net of enemies about them, until from every side bows began to bend and arrows drew back, tipped with death.

Suddenly their weapons dropped. Older men among them, perhaps recognizing for the first time the pipe of peace which Marquette still held, restrained the impetuous young braves. Coming to the water’s edge as the white men drew nearer, two chiefs tossed their bows and quivers into the canoes and invited the strangers to come ashore in peace.

With signs and gestures Indians and white men talked. In vain did Marquette try, one after another, the six Indian languages which he knew. At length there came forward an old man who spoke a broken Illinois tongue. Through him Marquette asked many questions about the lower river and the sea. But the Indians only replied that the strangers could learn all they wished at a village of the Arkansas Indians, about ten leagues farther down the stream. The explorers were fed with sagamite and fish; and, not without some fear, they spent the night in the Indian village.

The next morning they continued their journey, taking the old man with them as an interpreter; and ahead of them went a canoe with ten Indians. They had not gone many leagues when they saw two canoes coming up the river to meet them. In one stood an Indian chief who held a calumet and made signs of peace. Chanting a strange Indian song, he gave the white men tobacco to smoke and sagamite and bread made from Indian corn to eat. Under the direction of their new guides the Frenchmen soon came to the village of the Arkansas, which lay near the mouth of the river of that name.

Here under the scaffold of the chief they were given seats on fine rush mats. In a circle about them were gathered the elders of the tribe; and around about the elders were the warriors; and beyond the warriors in a great crowd were the rest of the tribe eager to see and hear the strange men who had come down from the north. Among the young men was one who spoke the Illinois tongue better than the old man, and through him Marquette talked to the tribe. In his talk he told of the white man’s religion, and of the great French chief who had sent them down the valley of the Mississippi.

Then he asked them all manner of questions about the trip to the sea. Was it many days’ journey now? And what tribes were on the way?

It was only on occasions like this that the Indian boy understood what was said, for usually his companions in the canoes spoke the melodious but to him wholly unintelligible French. He now listened to the Illinois tongue with keen interest. The young interpreter was telling of their neighbors to the north and east and south and west. Four days’ journey to the west was the village of an Illinois tribe, and to the east were other friendly people from whom they bought hatchets, knives, and beads. But toward the great sea to the south, where the white men wished to go, were their enemies. Savage tribes with guns barred them from trade with the Spaniards. All along the lower river the fierce tribes were continually fighting; and woe betide the white men if they ventured farther, for they would never return.

As the Indians told of the dangers of the river below the mouth of the Arkansas River, large platters of wood were continually being brought in, heaped with sagamite, Indian corn, and the flesh of dogs. Nor did the feast end before the close of day.

Meditating upon the warnings of their hosts, the white men made ready for the night. When they had retired on beds raised about two feet from the ground at the end of their long bark-covered lodge, the Indians held a secret council. Some of the warriors had looked with envious eyes upon the canoes, clothes, and presents of the whites. Why not fall upon the strangers by night, beat out their brains with skull-crackers or Indian war clubs, and make away with the plunder? To some of the covetous Indians it was a tempting plan. The whites were defenseless and hundreds of leagues from their friends. Who was there to avenge their death?

But to the chief, who had welcomed the visitors with the pipe of peace, the bond of friendship was sacred. He broke up the schemes of the treacherous braves, dismissed the council, and sent for the white men. Then with the pipe of peace in his hand he danced before the strangers the sacred calumet dance; and as he closed the ceremony he gave into the hands of Marquette the calumet. It was a token, sacred among all Indians, that peace should not be broken, and that the whites would be unharmed.

The Frenchmen, however, did not sleep much. Joliet and the priest sat up far into the night and counseled together as to whether they should go on to the sea or turn back. They were now very near to the sea, they thought—so near that they were confident that the river continued southward to the Gulf of Mexico, instead of turning to the west or east to the Vermilion Sea or the Atlantic Ocean. Indeed, they believed that in two or three days they might reach the Gulf.

But in the country between the mouth of the Arkansas and the mouth of the Mississippi skulked fierce and murderous tribes; while not far away were the Spaniards. Should they fall into the hands of enemies and lose their lives, who would tell to France the story of their marvelous journeyings? Their beloved nation would lose all knowledge of their expedition and therefore all claim to the Great Valley by right of their exploration. Then, too, there seemed little more to be learned in traveling the balance of the way to the mouth. Joliet was anxious to report to his government the story of the expedition, and Marquette was full of eagerness to tell his brother priests of the Indians whom he had met and the great work that lay open to their missionary efforts.

As a matter of fact, the voyagers were many a long day’s journey from the river’s mouth. But happy in the thought that they were nearly there, Joliet and the priest at last determined to turn back upstream and carry to New France the wonderful tale of their pioneer voyage down the great untraveled river.

CHAPTER IV

THE CAPTIVE RELEASED

It was about the middle of July, 1673, when the Arkansas Indians saw the band of white men leave their village to start out upon the return voyage. The weeks that followed their departure from the Arkansas town were full of toil for the voyagers; for now in the heat of summer they must paddle against the current of the greatest of American rivers. At length, coming to the mouth of the Illinois and believing that it offered a shorter route than the one by which they had come, they turned into its waters and paddled up its smooth stream toward the Lake.

In the course of this journey up the Illinois River they came one day, with great surprise, to a village in whose lodges lived the same Peoria Indians whom they had last seen on the other side of the Mississippi, in the town on the bank of the Iowa River. The Peorias, too, were surprised to see the seven white men and the Indian boy come paddling up the stream.

Here the tired voyagers were welcomed with such hospitality that they lingered for three days in the village. The Indian boy renewed old acquaintances, while Marquette passed from lodge to lodge, telling the Indians of the God of the French who had guarded them in their long journey and protected them from pestilence and the disasters of the river, and from torture and murder by hostile tribes of Indians. The Peorias in turn told the priest of their brother tribes along the Illinois River and of the wars they waged together against the Sacs and Foxes of the North and the bands of Iroquois from the East. But as they looked into the face of the priest, they saw lines of suffering and sickness, and they knew that he had not borne with ease the long and arduous trip.

When the voyagers made ready to depart, the Indians gathered at the river bank to bid them good-bye. As they were about to embark, some Indians brought to the edge of the stream a sick child and asked Father Marquette to baptize it. With great joy the priest complied, for it was the first and, indeed, the only baptism on the whole summer’s voyage. A few minutes later the little child died.

The canoes were then pushed into the stream, the men dipped their paddles, and, rounding a point of land a short distance up the stream, disappeared from view. The group of Indians turned back to the village, bearing the body of the dead child. They wrapped it tenderly in the skins of wild animals and laid it away on a scaffold of poles high above the reach of prowling wolves.

Autumn came upon the land and through the fallen leaves along the shore the young Indians passed back and forth among the villages on the Illinois. From the Kaskaskias, who dwelt farther up the river, the Peorias learned that Marquette and Joliet had stopped at the upper village, and that the black robe had promised to come again and preach to them. Moreover, when they left this village, one of the chiefs of the nation, with a band of his own men, went with them up the river, across the portage, and as far as the Lake of the Illinois—as they then called Lake Michigan. There they left the white men paddling valiantly up the west shore toward Green Bay and the Jesuit Mission of St. Francis Xavier.

At Green Bay, Marquette stopped with his brother priests and tried to gain strength enough to return to the Illinois villages. But Joliet went farther. Taking the Indian lad with him, he journeyed as far as the settlement at the Straits of Mackinac. There the young Indian spent such a winter as he had never known before. About him were the great log lodges of the French; and in the streets of the little town walked men of strange and curious ways. There were dark-bearded traders, priests with black robes and cowls, trappers and coureurs de bois in blanket coats, and fur caps; and Indians, from about the Great Lakes, gathered there to sell furs and buy the white man’s guns and liquor.

The Indian boy soon began to understand and talk the language of the white men, and by the end of the winter he could even read and write a little in French. He was quick to learn the ways of the Frenchmen; and his many attractive qualities endeared him to Joliet.

When the spring of 1674 came on, Joliet and several Frenchmen embarked in a canoe and began the descent of the Great Lakes. They were bound for the home of the governor of New France at Quebec, high on the rocks beside the St. Lawrence. As a gift to the governor, Joliet was taking the Indian boy who had shared his wanderings in the Great Valley.

Joliet and his companions were weeks upon the journey, paddling steadily by lake shore and river, through straits and past wooded islands. Only once were they compelled to carry their canoe over a portage. At last they came near to the town of Montreal, with the high hill rising up behind it. They were nearly home now, and the heart of Joliet must have leaped high as he thought of the long months he had spent on his perilous journey. Soon he would come in triumph before Frontenac, governor of Canada, and tell him of his explorations and put into his hands his map and papers and the precious journal of his voyage. These documents lay beside him in the bottom of the canoe in a box, together with some relics of the far-away valley of the Mississippi.

Only La Chine Rapids—the Sault St. Louis as they were then called—lay between the voyagers and Montreal, and then the road was clear and smooth to the high rock of Quebec. The canoe entered the swift-running water. Foam-covered rocks swept past them. Many a time had Joliet passed through these rapids. Probably, after all the perils through which he had safely come on the Great River, he looked only with joy upon this familiar rush of waters. Perhaps to the Indian boy came the thought of the demon whom his people feared in the surging waters of the Mississippi. Surely another such demon lived in this troubled passage, with death in its relentless grasp.

As if to prove real the fears of the Indian, the demon of the water reached out a great wet arm and overturned the frail canoe. Tossed into the fierce current were Joliet and his French boatmen, the Indian boy, and the precious box of papers; while downstream went blindly bobbing the bark canoe. Wildly the men struggled in the rushing stream, the current all the while wrenching at their legs and playing with their feeble efforts. Joliet fought till the breath was gone from his lungs and the strength from his limbs. Then he lost consciousness.

The unpitying sun made a long arc in the heavens above the tossing human bodies. Four hours had Joliet been in the water when fishermen pulled him out on shore and brought him back to life. Two of his men were drowned; and his precious box of papers lay somewhere beneath the rushing waters.

And the Indian boy? He, too, had given up to the evil spirit of the rapids. No more would he pass like a waif from tribe to tribe; no longer would he try with eyes and tongue and fingers to learn the ways of his new white friends. Forever he had left the rolling hills and streams of the Great Valley, the green prairies so full of sunshine, and the woods so full of game. He had passed to the happy hunting-ground of his people.

CHAPTER V

THE BLACK GOWN

In the valley of the Mississippi it was summer again. Father Marquette, still sick, had not come back to the Illinois tribes. The Peorias and Kaskaskias, in their two villages on the Illinois River, lived comfortable, happy lives, for theirs was a beautiful and fertile valley in these sunny summer months. In the rich soil of the prairies the Indian women had planted seeds which had been carefully preserved from the year before. And now in the fields the young girls were working among the long rows of Indian corn and tending the bean-vines. In their season melons and squashes grew plentifully. The woods along the river were full of game; and in the quiet water of the Illinois, fish by the hundred swam to and fro, an easy target for the swift-winged arrow of the Indian youth. Far back on the plains roamed great herds of buffalo, which afforded both sport and food for the Indians. When fall came, the Indians would surround a herd of buffalo and then set fire to the prairie, taking care to leave an open space by which the frightened animals could escape. As the big animals passed out through this break in the circle of fire, they were easily shot by the Indian hunters.

All up and down the river and over on the Lake of the Illinois, the winter of 1674 fell upon the land with stinging fierceness. The air was so cold that it was almost brittle. The winds howled and swept through the valley with gusts that drove the Indians chilled to their firesides; while the snow, as it piled higher and higher, often brought despair to the men scattered far and wide on their long winter hunts. Sometimes the deer were so lean as to be scarcely worth the shooting. From the Mississippi to the cold shores of the Lakes the men of the Illinois tribes were hunting and trapping and trading furs.

One day during this bleak winter there came striding into the village of the Kaskaskias an Indian of great note among the Illinois. He was Chassagoac, the famous Kaskaskia chief and fur trader. Having just come from the upper shores of Lake Michigan, he reported that near Green Bay he had come upon Father Marquette with two Frenchmen, setting out at last for the villages of the Illinois. Coming into camp with a deer on his back, he had shared his meat with these white men and on the next day had set out with them down the west shore of the Lake. The courageous priest was still far from well, but he was determined to keep his promise to the Illinois Indians. Accompanied by a number of Illinois men who were out on the winter hunt, and by the Illinois women who had packed the canoes and equipments across the portage from Green Bay to the Lake, the party made their way slowly southward along the shore.

Father Marquette spent part of the time teaching the Indians; while his two men, Pierre and Jacques, mended the guns of the Indian hunters and went out with them in search of game. Their canoes were too frail to stand much of the weather that now hung about the edge of the Lake. Floating ice drove them ashore again and again. Rain, sleet, and fierce, chilling winds kept them off the water for days at a time, while deep snows impeded their progress on land.

Early in December, they reached the mouth of the Chicago River, where, moving inland a few leagues, the white men built a rude cabin and made ready to encamp for the winter. Marquette still suffered greatly and could go no farther. Here Chassagoac and his Illinois followers left the party and came on to the village; but not before they had bought of the whites, for three fine beaver skins, a cubit of the French tobacco. Then they had journeyed on to bring the news that the Black Gown would come in the spring. Great was the rejoicing among the Illinois.

Weeks had passed when Jacques, the priest’s servant, came to one of the Illinois camps and told of how the Black Gown lay sick in the cabin near the Lake. Thereupon the Indians sent back a delegation with corn and dried meat and pumpkins and beaver skins. With these presents they asked for powder and other merchandise. The priest replied that he had come to encourage peace—that he did not wish them to make war upon the Miamis—and so he could not send them powder; but he loaded them down for their twenty-league journey with hatchets and knives and beads and mirrors.

Now it happened that there were two white traders who had also ventured into the land of the Illinois; and from their cabins they brought supplies to the sick priest. One of these men, who called himself a surgeon, stayed awhile at the lonely cabin of Marquette, glad to hear mass and do what he could to relieve the sufferings of the black-gowned father.

It was with exceeding great joy that the white men in their cabin near the Lake and the Indians in their hunting-camps and villages along the river welcomed the warmer winds from the south that broke up the ice in the river and unlocked the wintry hold that had bound the land. Wild animals appeared and meat became plentiful once more. The snow melted down into rushing streams or sank into the friendly earth. As the sun became warmer at midday, the Indian women prepared for the season of planting.

On the 8th day of April, in the year 1675, a shout of welcome went up in the Kaskaskia village, for the long-expected priest had come. This quiet man, kind of face and gentle of manner, found himself among friends who looked with sorrow at the signs of sickness graven upon his patient face. They knew as well as he that he had not many months to live. But they saw also upon his face a wonderful joy, for the priest had accomplished the one great purpose that had upheld him in the weary weeks of suffering—he had come again to preach to the Illinois Indians.

In one cabin after another the good Father spoke to the chiefs and warriors who gathered to hear him. Finding the cabins too small, he held a great meeting in the open air on a broad level prairie. Here the whole village gathered. The chiefs and elders seated themselves next to the priest; and around them stood hundreds of young Indian braves; and still farther from the centre of the vast circle of red men were gathered the women and children of the tribe. For a long time he talked to them, and with each message he gave them presents after the manner of Indian councils.

This was the last visit of the black-robed priest to the Illinois Indians. His strength soon failed him, and with Jacques and Pierre he started back up the river and across to the Lake, hoping against hope that he might reach the Mission of St. Ignace at Mackinac before he died. Friendly Indians went with them more than thirty leagues of the way, contending with one another for the privilege of carrying his few belongings.

Finally they reached the Lake and embarked. Jacques and Pierre paddled the canoe along the shore, as each day the priest grew weaker. He had always prayed that he might die like his patron saint, St. Francis Xavier, in the far and lonely wilderness of his ministry. One Friday evening, about the middle of May, he told his companions with great joy that he would die on the morrow. As they passed the mouth of a small river, Marquette, pointing to a low hill rising beside it, asked his two men to bury him there.

They carried him ashore and built for his protection a rude cabin of bark. There he died quietly on Saturday, May 18, 1675. He was buried by his two men on the rising knoll which he had chosen; and over his grave they rang his little chapel bell, and erected a rude cross to mark the spot.

Some time later a party of Kiskakon Indians, returning from a hunting trip, came by the site of the lonely grave. They had known Father Marquette years before when he lived on the shores of Lake Superior. Now they determined to carry his remains to the church at the Mission of St. Ignace. Reverently they gathered up the precious bones, dried and prepared them after their own Indian fashion, laid them in a box of birch bark, and bore them in state with a convoy of thirty canoes to the Mission at Mackinac. There in a vault of the church the remains of Father Marquette were laid away with funeral honors; and there priests and traders venerated his memory and Indians came to pray at his tomb.

And out in the valley of the Illinois, the tribes to whom he had made his last pilgrimage mourned the death of their gentle-spirited visitor; and the Peorias, as they went about their daily occupations in fields or lodges, on the prairies or on the streams, often thought of the day in June when the black-robed priest and his French companion had walked up the little pathway and stood out to meet them in the glorious sunshine at their old village on the banks of the Iowa River.

CHAPTER VI

“THE IROQUOIS ARE COMING”

“The Iroquois are coming!” It was a cry that shook the heart of even the boldest among the Illinois Indians. Fierce as the northwest wind in winter, the cruel, bloodthirsty red men from the East had spread terror in their path all along the Great Lakes and out as far as the Mississippi. Down near the mouth of the Ohio, Marquette and Joliet on their memorable voyage in 1673 had found the Shawnee living in deadly fear of the warriors of the Five Nations.

Five years had passed over the lodges of the Peorias and Kaskaskias since that memorable summer; but fear still hung about the villages of the upper basin of the Great Valley. Three years of winter and summer hunts, of ripening corn and snow-locked landscape, had come and gone in the valley of the Illinois since the black-robed Marquette, gentle-faced and sick unto death, had bade farewell to the young Kaskaskia Indians and journeyed off with his two men along the shore of the Lake of the Illinois, never again to be seen alive save by his two faithful companions.

Through all these years the Indian women whispered their fears among themselves in the lodges; and the men, as they chipped their stone arrowheads or shaped their strong bows, prayed to their manitous that if the Iroquois should come, the stone tips might fly straight and sure, lest their lodges be burned and the naked, howling men of the East carry torture and death among their women and children.

The Iroquois did come. It was in the year 1678 that war parties of these fierce tribes descended upon the valley of the Illinois. Out on the wooded plains the allied tribes advanced to meet them; while the women and children and the old men of the villages waited in dread and fear till runners came breathless to tell them of the repulse of the hated foe. This time the villages were saved, but fear did not die out with the victory. The valley lay like an ancient stronghold whose defenders had fought the besiegers away from the walls, yet slept on their arms in constant dread of a still more deadly attack.

In this same year of 1678, Allouez, another black-robed priest, came to settle among the Indians of the Kaskaskia village. He had come out to them for a few weeks in the spring of the year before, when eight of the tribes of the Illinois Nation were gathered at the village of the Kaskaskias that they might be in constant readiness to repel invasions of the Iroquois. Now the priest had come to stay, to baptize their children, and to teach them more about the strange manitou of whom Marquette had first told them. A huge cross, twenty-five feet high, had been erected in the middle of the town, and the Indians listened respectfully while he chanted the mass and preached to them.

The winter with its long hunting season went by; the river froze over and thawed out again; the time of planting came once more; and the children again played in the sun through the long hours of summer. So events moved on toward the strange happenings of the winter that followed. In the Kaskaskia village the women and girls had gathered the harvest of Indian corn and had stowed it away in caches or pits dug in the ground, lined with rushes and twigs and covered over for the long winter. It was a precious store, for it must provide corn for the spring sowing and food until the next harvest came around again. Then as the leaves dropped one by one from the trees along the river and the colder winds came, the whole village went off for the winter hunt.

It was the night before Christmas in 1679, and Allouez, the black-robed priest, still lingered in the Kaskaskia village, thinking, more than likely, of Christmas Eve in his beloved France far across the ocean, where amid the lights of a hundred candles priests were conducting midnight mass. Or perchance he thought of the high rock of Quebec where a frontier settlement held frowning watch above the river. Even it was hundreds of leagues nearer civilization than he.

But hark! There was a sound that brought the priest out of his reveries and back to the forest and rocks along the snow-skirted river of the wilderness. Out of the darkness came a group of Indians—young braves from some wandering bands of Miamis and Mascoutins. Well did Allouez know these tribes, for he had lived with them years before in their village near the portage of the Fox River. Strange and exciting was the news which they brought him this night. Alarm deepened on the priest’s face as he gathered his few belongings and made his way across the snow and through the woods to the village of the Miamis and Mascoutins.

The village of the Kaskaskias, on the north shore of the Illinois, now lay silent and deserted. The lonely lodges and the well-filled caches alone gave evidence that the Indians would return. Many leagues down the river was the village of the Peorias. Here, too, the young men were off on the winter hunt; but the older men and the women and children were still at the village. With them was Nicanopé, brother of Chassagoac, and many others of the Kaskaskia tribe.

Not a hint of the message that brought such alarm to Allouez at the upper village had come to the Peorias. Aside from the ever-present dread of the Iroquois, that lurked in each Indian’s mind, they lived as peacefully as the hardships of winter would permit. Smoke from their lodges rose up into the wintry sky, or veered off to the south and east when the blasts of wind swept across the plains. The river was open, and by the bank on either side lay pirogues—heavy canoes fifty feet long and big enough to hold more than a score of men.

Less than two weeks had passed since Allouez had fled from the upper village. The sun had been up an hour or more, and the Peoria village was bustling with life. Warriors and old men stalked here and there in their winter garments of buffalo hide, or sat smoking and gazing placidly upon river and sky. The ever busy women sat weaving rush mats or bestirred themselves in gathering wood. Children played about in the open, and on the sunny side of the lodges zealous mothers had already set up on end the brown papooses bound like little mummies in the cradles.

Then, stirring the village as an arrow startles a covey of birds, came the wild cry, “The Iroquois.” From behind a jutting point up the river swept a long line of canoes. Indescribable confusion followed. On both sides of the river men sprang for their bows and arrows; while women, hardly pausing to seize their babes, scuttled away between the lodges and on to the friendly woods back on the hill. With them went the young girls and children, fleeing like scared rabbits.

Meantime the current of the river bore the canoes down to the village. They turned to the left, and a tall figure leaped from the nearest canoe to the bank and then stood quietly watching the confusion of the villagers. Some of the warriors fled to the woods with the women. Others with eager weapons were about to attack the newcomers, when a cry from one of their chiefs on the other shore made them pause. He had seen that, although the men from the canoes, armed with guns and ready for war, could have shot down a dozen Illinois in their first confused scramble for weapons, they had not fired a single shot. These men were evidently not Iroquois, but Frenchmen who seemed bent on peace rather than battle.

Quickly the calumet was raised by the reassured Peorias, and another was offered by the French. The canoes were drawn up to the bank, and together the white men and the villagers went to the lodges. Old men reappeared from the woods and women came out of their hiding-places. Children with wary eyes looked up into the faces of three friars, Fathers of the Recollet Order with gray robes and pointed cowls, who took them by the hand and poured out friendly but unintelligible words.

In the lodges the warriors and chiefs—now that the fear of an Iroquois attack had subsided—welcomed the visitors with every sign of good will. They rubbed their feet with bear’s oil and the fat of buffalo and fed them with the best the village had to offer. Then they sat down for a council of peace, ready to hear the message of the white men. Chassagoac was away on the hunt, and so his brother Nicanopé was the highest in rank of the Indian chiefs who were present.

There were bold men among the French in this council; and the Indians gazed with kindling eyes upon the tall figure of the white chief who had first leaped from his canoe, and upon the dark face of another man who seemed to be next in command. This second man had sat in the canoe at the farther end of the line that had swept down to the village. He was among the last to come ashore; but something unusual and strangely awkward about his movements caught the quick attention of the Indians. In the council, however, their eyes turned from the swarthy, black-haired lieutenant to the tall white leader as he rose to speak.

Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, was a man still under middle age, but an indomitable will and a restless and unceasing activity had already crowded his years with the experiences of an ordinary lifetime. No Indian could look upon his cold, finely chiseled features and unflinching eyes without feeling the relentless force of the man. They listened with quiet attention to his words.

He offered them a present of Martinique tobacco and some hatchets, saying that first of all he wished to tell them of a thing he had done and explain it to them. A few days before he and his men had come to the village of their brother tribe, the Kaskaskias, many leagues up the river. The village was empty where they had hoped to find friendly Indians with food. Unable to kill game, they were in danger of starvation. They well knew how precious was the corn hidden in the caches of the deserted town, but in their extremity they had borrowed some; and now they wished to pay for it in presents or to return it to the Peorias if the Indians could not spare it. At the same time he added that if they could not let him have food for his men, he would go down the river to their neighbors, the Osages, and there set up the forge which he had brought to mend their knives and hatchets and make them new tools for the warpath and the chase.

Behind the impassive faces of Nicanopé, Omawha, and other chiefs were minds alive to a new situation. This man was not a mere black robe, come among them to preach and to baptize their dying; nor was he a lone trader, a coureur de bois passing by in his bold profession of trapping, hunting, and trading furs. Here was a great chief with men at his back, a warrior with fire-spitting guns, a trader with canoes full of hatchets and knives and tobacco and a forge to keep their weapons in order and to make them new ones. Surely he was a great and powerful man who had come into their country this cold winter day, and well would it be for the tribes of the Illinois if he stayed among them.

But what is this he is saying? He speaks of the Iroquois. They, too, are subjects of the King of the French. Yet if the bold Iroquois should fall upon them, La Salle and his followers would be with the Illinois, would give them guns, and would help them protect their villages from the onslaughts of the Five Nations. Only they must let him build a fort near their village for the protection of his men. He wished, also, to build a great canoe, big enough to hold all his men and goods, and by means of it to travel down the Illinois to the Mississippi and thence on its broad current to where it emptied into the Gulf of Mexico—so that he might bring back more hatchets and presents.

The Indians were overjoyed. Many of the Kaskaskias were present, and among them was Nicanopé, one of their chiefs. They told La Salle to keep the corn he had taken at the upper village, and begged him to stay among them and set up his forge and build his fort. If he wished to descend the river that flowed through the length of the Great Valley, he would find it an easy waterway and the country through which it flowed a land of beauty and plenty.

Finally the conference broke up and the Indians retired to their own lodges in great happiness of mind. Among them none was happier than Chief Omawha, for La Salle had shown him special favor and had given him two hatchets and a number of knives.

CHAPTER VII

THE SECRET COUNCIL

Night came on cold and still. In the river the floating particles of ice grew into a solid sheet until the stream was covered from shore to shore. La Salle, having retired with his men to the quarters assigned, set guards about the lodges and dropped off to sleep. In their own long lodges the Indians rolled up in blankets and dreamed perchance of the warpath and the triumphant return of warriors bearing the scalps of the Iroquois.

In the darkness off to the northeast half a dozen Indians quietly filed along the trail toward the village. They were loaded down with burdens. Into the village they slipped stealthily and came to the lodge of the chief. Soon furtive figures of Indian men were creeping from this lodge and that until the chiefs and warriors had gathered in a secret night council with the strangers from the northeast.

La Salle and his men slept on in peace, while Nicanopé and Omawha and their friends sat in a circle and listened to the words of the nocturnal visitors. Monso, a Mascoutin chief, was the spokesman, and with him were five or six Miamis. The burdens they bore were kettles and hatchets and knives, as presents to accompany the story they had come so secretly to tell to the Illinois. And this was their message. La Salle was a friend of the Iroquois. Even now he was on his way to the enemies of the Illinois on the Great River beyond. He would give these foes arms and ammunition and come back with them from the west while the Iroquois closed in from the east. Thus, surrounded and trapped, the Illinois would meet their ruin. Their only hope was to prevent La Salle from going farther and from joining their enemies on the Mississippi.

Monso told his message with effect; and fear fell upon the men of the Peoria village as they pondered over the warning which had come to them in this weird night council. Beneath the dirt floor of the lodge they buried the presents which Monso had brought. The strangers, having given their disquieting news, slipped out into the dark and disappeared as quietly as they had come; while the Peoria men crept back to their lodges and tried to forget the alarm which Monso had brought into the village.

At the secret council in which Monso and the Miamis told their story there was one who did not share the fear of his fellows; but he said nothing. The chief Omawha sat quietly throughout the council and passed out with his brother chiefs without a word. But in the early morning he came in secret to La Salle and unfolded to him the story of the night.

As on the face of the river that had frozen over since the arrival of the French, there had come by morning a change in the mood of the Illinois Indians. Yesterday they were happy and friendly, full of smiles and good words for La Salle and his dark-skinned companion and the score and more of their men. To-day they were cold and suspicious. They believed Monso and feared—feared for their homes and for the lives of every man, woman, and child of the tribes. The dread of the Iroquois rose fresh in their minds as they saw in the powerful Frenchmen the allies of their enemies. The cold sun of winter rose to its highest in the sky and started on its journey down to the west. Something must be done and at once or they were lost.

Nicanopé sent word to the lodge of La Salle that he was preparing a feast for him and his men. Presently through the streets of the Indian town stalked the strange procession of white men on their way to the feast. From the entrance of every lodge curious Indians watched the visitors pass. Most of them, perhaps, followed the movements of La Salle—long of limb and steadfast of face, with keen eyes, and hair that flowed down over his collar. But many eyes strayed from him to his dark-faced, black-haired companion, who appeared to be second in command and whose right arm as he walked hung by his side with a peculiar heaviness. This man was Henry de Tonty; and in all the Western world there beat no braver heart than his. Nor did the gallant La Salle have truer friend and follower in the troublous days that were at hand.

Besides these two men there were perhaps thirty Frenchmen—some of them weatherbeaten with many years’ experience in the wilds, and some of them young and not long arrived from distant France. Here also were three long-robed and sandaled friars, not gowned in black like Marquette and the lately departed Allouez, but in gray gowns and hoods. One was young and short and vigorous; one was old, yet full of spirit. The third walked with a pompous tread, and a complacent pride sat upon his round face.

Into the lodge where the feast was to be given the white men filed and seated themselves with the chiefs and men of the Illinois tribes. Less than twenty-four hours had passed since the midnight visitors from the Miami village had told their tale in low voices in the same lodge. It was not alone a feast that was to be celebrated; for in the minds of the Illinois was the determination that these bold men should be stopped by some means from going on to incite their Western enemies. As they looked upon the two leaders and their company, hostile were their thoughts, though their eyes did not show it. Yes, La Salle and his men must be stopped. And so as they squatted on mats on the earthen floor of the lodge and waited for the feast, the chief Nicanopé rose and began to speak.

He had not brought the white men there, he said, so much to feast their bodies as to cure them of the strange madness which possessed them of going on down the Mississippi. No one went there except to his death. Terrible tribes who by force of numbers could overwhelm the French dwelt along the shores. The waters of the river were full of huge serpents and deadly monsters. Even if their great canoe saved them from these perils, the channel of the river ran over rapids and fell in torrents over steep precipices, and finally shot down into a great abyss where it was lost under the earth, and no living man knew where it went. Such would be the awful fate of the French if they pursued their journey farther.

The Peorias squatted in silence as they listened to the chief’s warning. Surely the white men would not venture into such dangers. They watched the faces of La Salle and his followers for some flicker of fear. Upon the countenances of La Salle and Tonty no shadow moved. Here and there among their men were coureurs de bois—men who had lived in the Western country and who understood the words of Nicanopé. They translated them in whispers to their comrades. Uneasy looks crossed the faces of these less experienced adventurers, and the keen eyes of the Peorias caught flashes of fear and dismay on the face of many a French voyager. Their own hearts rejoiced at these signs of alarm, but their faces showed nothing save calm unconcern.

But in the words of La Salle they found little comfort when in turn he rose to reply. For the kindness of Nicanopé in warning them, he thanked him most cordially. But he was not daunted. If the dangers were great so much greater would be their glory. Frenchmen were happy, he said, to perish in carrying the name of their great chief to the ends of the earth. He believed that the story of deadly perils related by Nicanopé was prompted either by the friendly desire of the Illinois to have the white men remain in their village or else by some evil spirit who had whispered words of distrust. If the Illinois were in truth friendly to him, let them tell him frankly of the things which disturbed them. Otherwise he must believe that the friendship they had first shown came only from their lips.

Nicanopé, discouraged at the failure of his ruse, made no reply, but presented his guests with food. When they had eaten sagamite and venison and buffalo meat in silence, La Salle once more rose and continued his speech. He was not surprised to find the other tribes jealous of the advantages about to be enjoyed by the Illinois from their relations with the French, nor was he surprised that the other tribes should start false rumors; but he was astonished that the Illinois should believe those tales and hide them from him who had been so frank. Then he turned and directed his words to the astounded Nicanopé:—

“I was not asleep, my brother, when Monso last night in secret told his tales against the French and said that I was a spy of the Iroquois. Under this very lodge the presents with which he tried to persuade you of the truth of his story are still buried. Why did he take his flight so quickly? Why did he not speak to you by daylight if he spoke the truth?”

The Illinois sat silent, but with agitated minds. Amazement and awe filled their wary eyes. What manner of man was this who, though asleep in his lodge, divined the hidden secrets of their midnight council? What great medicine gave him power over the things of the night as well as the day? Could he read their thoughts? The ringing voice of the white man continued:—

“Do you not know that, had I wished, in your confusion at my arrival, I could have killed you all? What need had I of Iroquois allies? Could I not this very hour with my soldiers slaughter all your chiefs and old men while your young men are off on the hunt? Look at our burdens. Are they not tools and merchandise for your benefit rather than weapons with which to attack you? Run after this liar Monso. Bring him back and let him face me whom he has never seen, yet whose plans he pretends to know.”

There was a short pause. Nicanopé had no word to say. Monso was gone and a snow had fallen upon his tracks. They could not trace him and bring him back. Their plans had failed. The leader of the French was to them now a man of wonder as well as fear. Only Omawha of all the Illinois understood, but he said not a word. Red men and white passed out from the feast and returned to their lodges. The wooded hills across the frozen river swallowed the winter sun and early twilight closed down upon the white landscape.

By the lodges given up to the Frenchmen, La Salle set a guard, and then lay down to sleep. Tonty, after a last look at the village, turned in among the robes. In the other lodges, stretched upon mats and wrapped in buffalo skins, Indian men lay sleeping or thinking of the strange happenings of the night and day that were gone. If any had watched, as mayhap they did, they would have seen a second nightly gathering—this time in the shadows of the Frenchmen’s lodges. Six figures stealthily exchanged words and signs; and then without noise crept past the farthest lodge and out across the snow toward the village of the Miamis whence Monso had come. They were some of those Frenchmen upon whose faces the observant Indians had seen signs of fear at the words of Nicanopé.

An hour went by, when a new light began to touch the sky and the woods. Out from the lodge of La Salle the tall figure of the leader stepped into the cold morning air. He looked about in surprise. Not one of his men was to be seen on guard. With quick, fierce stride he visited one after another of the lodges. In one of them he found only a single Frenchman, whose companions had not taken him into their plot.

Tonty, awaking, found his leader beside him with serious news upon his lips. Six of their men—cowards and knaves—had preferred the dangers of exposure and starvation to the dangers which Nicanopé had described. They had taken advantage of their position as guards to desert their leader in the hope of reaching the village from which Monso had come.

CHAPTER VIII

THE FORT CALLED CRÈVECŒUR

For ten days the air was snapping with cold, and the river beside the Peoria village remained frozen. In the hearts of the Peorias lingered the chill of fear, for in spite of his denunciation of Monso they could not banish their doubts of the French chief; and the dreaded Iroquois invasion, which had haunted them for years, was very present in their thoughts as the Frenchmen passed among them.

When Indians once see fear betrayed in public, they never forget; and now for some of La Salle’s men the Peorias had only contempt, for not all of those who had shown fear at the words of Nicanopé had fled to the woods. Others of the French, such as Ako, the coureur de bois, were of a different breed. Bold, strong, experienced in woodcraft by many years in the wilds, they commanded at least consideration from the Indian warriors.

As for the three gray-robed friars, they did no harm and there was a curious mystery about their ceremonies that pleased the Indians’ childlike hearts. One of these friars—Father Hennepin—looked far more like a man who loved the world and the joys of life. He strutted about the village with all priestly meekness smothered by his interest in his surroundings. Very conscious was he of his own greatness, and well satisfied that without him the little band of French would be in sore straits.

It was with different feelings that the Peorias looked upon La Salle and Tonty. They feared them greatly and still retained their suspicions, but with their fear and suspicion there was also respect and awe. They recognized in them the qualities an Indian loves—strength, utter fearlessness, and a determination that breaks down all obstacles. About each of these men there was mystery which baffled the wits of the Indians and excited their interest even more than did the medicine men of their own tribes.

Of the past of these two remarkable men the Indians knew nothing; they could not read the tale of danger and hardship that had marked the years of La Salle, or the story of the pitfalls and snares laid by his enemies for his destruction. They could not know that at Fort Frontenac, when La Salle was on his way to their country, one of his men had put poison in his food. Nor did they know of the incident at the Miami portage, where one of his followers, walking behind, had raised his gun to shoot his leader in the back and was prevented only by the quick arm of a comrade. They knew that six of the men had deserted and gone off into the woods, but they did not know that on that same day in their own village another of his treacherous knaves had again tried to poison him.

They knew nothing of the early experiences of Henry de Tonty, of the seas he had sailed and the fights he had fought by land and water in the service of the King of France. Nor did they yet know the faith with which he served his leader and friend La Salle. But a sure instinct told the red men that here were two men whom they would love as friends or fear as enemies.

One chill day followed another. Most of the young men were still off on the hunt and warpath. Those who remained at home mended their weapons, smoked, and idly watched the women at work on mats and robes—but never for a moment let go the thought or sight of the white strangers in their midst.

In the middle of January the ice melted, the air dropped its sting, and the friendly earth appeared from beneath the snow. La Salle and the friar Hennepin stepped into a canoe and paddled down the river to a point half a league below the village. Soon Tonty and the rest of the band joined them. On the left-hand side of the river, two hundred paces from the edge of the water, rose a small hill. In front of it there was a stretch of low swampy ground, and on either side were deep ravines.

The inquisitive Indians who slipped along the shore to watch the movements of the white men saw them at work digging a ditch behind the hill to connect the two ravines. Around the edge of the hill a line of earth was thrown up, making a wall which sloped down into ditch and ravine and marsh. Then a palisade of logs was erected twenty feet high. Inside this stockade in two corners the busy Frenchmen built lodgings for themselves, a cabin for the three friars in the third corner, and a storehouse in the fourth. Along the rear wall the forge was set up, and in the very midst of the inclosure were the quarters of La Salle and Tonty. To this stronghold beside the Illinois River, La Salle gave the name of Fort Crèvecœur.

Another work that astonished the Indians still more went on at the bank of the river. Here the men felled great trees, hewed them into timbers, sawed planks, and began to build a mighty canoe such as the men of the tribe had never seen. With a forty-foot keel and a twelve-foot beam, no Peoria could doubt that it would make its way safely down the Great River that ran through the land of their enemies.

Many times did the Indians wonder in their hearts whether or not the French chief believed in the tales of terror that Nicanopé had spoken. They saw him little at the village now, for he and his men had moved down to the new Fort Crèvecœur; but there was never a time when Indian figures, none too busy at home, did not peer through the bushes or sit boldly by, fascinated by the busy doings at the fort and primitive shipyard.

Far to the south, meanwhile, a band of the young men were on their way home from the warpath. Many leagues ahead of them hurried one of the band, a young warrior sent on to tell the village of their approach. Over the plains and through tangled woods he plodded on weary feet. He was less than three leagues from the village now, but he was tired and very hungry. As he trudged along, he came upon a figure somewhat strange to his eyes. But he had seen the traders who came now and then down the rivers from Canada and he knew this man for a Frenchman. He saw, what was more pleasing to his needs, that the stranger carried four wild turkeys. Far spent with hunger, he called to him and asked for food.

The white man handed him one of the wild turkeys. With eager hands the Indian lighted a fire, swung over it a kettle which he carried with him and proceeded to cook the fowl. While the fire licked the sides of the kettle the strange white man asked him of his journey and inquired about the Great River that ran through the countries of the South. The young warrior picked up from the fire a charred bit of wood and with it drew, on a piece of bark, a careful diagram which showed the course of the river and the streams that fell into it. Then he gave the names of these streams and told of the tribes that dwelt along them, and the white man wrote them down in his own language on the bark.

Everywhere along the Mississippi the young Indian had traveled in a pirogue, and never was there a fall or rapids to obstruct his way. Not even were there sandbars, save near the mouth in the heat of summer-time. The two men talked of these things for some time, while the Indian rested and appeased his hunger. Finally the Frenchman gave to the red man a hatchet and asked him to say to no one that he had met him. With his lips thus sealed by the white man’s gift and his stomach made glad by the white man’s game, the young Indian turned aside and accompanied his new friend with some awe to the newly built fort, instead of passing on to the village.

Early on the morning of the next day, in the village of the Peorias, a group of Indians were gathered in the lodge of one of the chiefs. They were feasting in great joy upon the meat of a bear—a delicacy much prized among them. Suddenly a form darkened the entrance to the lodge and La Salle strode in among the squatted Indians. He paused in their midst and looked about before he spoke. A smile of triumph was on his lips.

“Perhaps you do not know,” he said, “that the Maker of all things takes especial care of the French. In answer to my prayers he has revealed to me the truth concerning the Great River, which your frightful tales prevented me from learning.”

Then he went on to tell the astounded Indians of all the windings of the Mississippi, of the smooth current upon which a canoe might ride to its mouth. He described each river that entered it from the east and from the west, and named each tribe that dwelt on its borders. Nowhere was there fall or rapids to obstruct one’s way, and only where the river broadened out at the mouth were there shallows and sand and mud-bars. Each twist and turn, each rocky cliff and entering stream he seemed to know as if he had spent months in paddling up and down the river in an Indian pirogue.

The bear meat was forgotten. The Indians sat silent, their hands clapped to their mouths in amazement. What great power or “medicine” did this man possess that enabled him to watch what occurred in secret nightly councils, and to see and describe hundreds of leagues of the course and valley of the Great River he had never visited? Like children caught in mischief, they confessed that all he said was true and that they had deceived him only to keep him in their midst.

La Salle departed from the lodge, leaving them with troubled minds. How strange and wonderful were these men of fair faces and flowing hair. And what did their presence bode for the Indian? Were they their friends, or were they at heart friends of the Iroquois? Who knew how near to their villages were bands of painted warriors of the Five Nations? Yet, though suspicion lay heavy upon their hearts, they looked with covetous eyes upon the hatchets and knives, the kettles and weapons that the white men brought.

CHAPTER IX

THE WHITE INVASION

Not a day passed but the Illinois followed with inquisitive eyes the movements of the men at the fort. They watched the great white beams by the river bank as the Frenchmen laid them out and fastened them together till the growing ship began to look like the white skeleton of an immense buffalo lying bleached and bare to the four winds of heaven.

Omawha, the friendly chief, adopted as a son the short young friar of La Salle’s party; and so the gray robe of Father Membré passed freely in and out of the lodges of the village. Like one of the chief’s family, he ate of the Indian fare and slept on buffalo robes beside smouldering lodge-fires. His fellow-whites were at the new fort; and he alone watched the coming of spring in the Indian town.

As winter began to break up, the hunting parties came home. The war party from the South brought captives with them, and the village became more populous. But Chassagoac, the indefatigable hunter, was still off in the woods.

Even in the long stretches of the Indian country, winterlocked and drear, news traveled fast; and the Illinois well knew that runners were carrying all up and down the Great Valley tales of the white men among the Peorias, of the fort on the hill, and of the ship that was to sail down the long river. It was, therefore, with concern that the Peorias saw one day a gathering of Indians encamped about the fort. They were Osages and Chickasaws and Arkansas—tribes that lived along the Mississippi far to the south. And the villagers knew that they—jealous of the advantages of the Illinois—would tell the white chief of the easy navigation of the river and urge him to come down and live in their country.

Not many days passed before another group of Indians arrived, this time from the Far West—so far beyond the Mississippi River that they told of long-haired Spaniards who rode to war on horses and fought with lances. One of the Indians proudly wore at his belt a tobacco pouch made from the hoof of a horse with some of the skin of the leg attached. A week later came still another delegation to see the far-famed whites. They were Sioux from the distant Northwest, in the land where the Mississippi took its rise; and they were long-time foes of the tribes of the Illinois.

In the councils of the Illinois Indians there was much debate. Each chief had his own opinion. It was a time of new and strange happenings. Long had the Illinois tribe lived proud and comfortable in the valley. They had hunted and fished up and down the rivers at their will. In the open spaces before their arbor-like lodges they gambled and smoked and basked in the summer days, the bright sun warming their naked bodies. And when they were tired of basking, they put on their garments of red and black paint, gathered howling in the war dance, and set out on a raid against the Sacs and Foxes west of the Lake of the Illinois, or the Sioux by the headwaters of the Mississippi, or the Osages and Arkansas and other tribes on its southern banks. Often, too, war came to them, and sometimes so desperate that even the Indian women fought hand to hand with the enemy in the spaces between the lodges of the village.

But of late years had come new dangers. Faint whisperings reached them of white-faced men who brought from across the sea weapons that roared like the thunder and smote their victims like bolts of lightning. Their ancient enemies, the Iroquois, bought these weapons with furs and carried their ravages upon the Western tribes with increased deadliness. Then they learned that the white men themselves were beginning to appear on the Great Lakes—first at the eastern end, but finally on the shores of Lake Superior and the Lake of the Illinois.

By and by there pushed out from the Lakes into the valleys of the Wisconsin and the Illinois, and even as far as the Upper Mississippi, the black-robed priest and the lone fur trader. Restless coureurs de bois floated down the rivers in greater numbers. They set up cabins and wintered in the lands which once the Indians alone knew. Priests, having come to visit, came again to stay. Soldiers and explorers pierced the far wilderness. Strange canoes shot up and down the waters. The ringing of axes sounded in the woods, and forts sprang up. These new bold habitants brought hatchets that put the old stone clubs to shame, kettles such as the Indians had never dreamed of, knives with a deadly edge, blankets of bright color and fine texture—and the childlike heart of the Indian was made glad.

A new force had come upon the land and the end of the old days was at hand. No Indian fully realized it. The novelty of the white man’s ways and the charm of his gifts shortened their vision, and so they lived each in the eventful present. But as surely as the river flowed down to the sea, the Great Valley was passing out of their grasp. The wide reaches of meadow, the leagues of hill and plain, the waters that ran past a thousand hills, virgin forest for their game, live soil for their corn, all the freedom and bounty of the greatest valley in the world had been theirs—a valley to roam over at will, to hunt in with the changing seasons, to fight for in the glory of battle among themselves.

The red men did not know that things were really going to be different, for they were not wise in prophecy. But they were restless in mind and they felt some of the dangers of the present; for like children they feared a power they could not understand.

Among the Illinois tribes this vague fear rose and then died out in the more placid courses of their lives. Then lurking suspicion seized upon some event and all was alarm again. So it was with other tribes, for fierce courage and abject terror alternated in the Indian mind.

Over on the shores of the Fox River and about the foot of the Lake of the Illinois lived the nation of Miamis. They were relatives of the Illinois tribes as well as neighbors, and their language was much the same. The fear of the Iroquois, armed with white men’s weapons, had seized such firm hold upon them that once they migrated to the Mississippi. But in a time of peace they had wandered back to their former homes. Now and then trouble arose between Miami and Illinois, and for years they waged war upon each other.

The secret embassy of Monso with his Miami followers left the Illinois uneasy. How did the Miamis know so much about the Iroquois? If the Iroquois came, would the Miamis join them against the people of the Illinois? And what would La Salle and Tonty and the men at the fort do? Round and round went question and answer as the spring came on. Soon would Chassagoac, their greatest chief, be back with his hunters. Perhaps his wisdom might help them.

In the meantime they went about their duties and pleasures in the village. The end of February, 1680, came, and on the last day of the month they saw a great stirring—an unusual bustling about and strutting up and down on the part of the gray-robed Hennepin. Finally he planted his figure solidly in a canoe laden with skins and weapons and knives and kettles. The veteran woodsman, Michael Ako, was with him and Antoine Auguel—called the Picard by his comrades because he came from Picardy in France. Bidding good-bye to those on the bank, the three men slipped swiftly down the current and out of sight. What new move was this?

The Indians wondered until the next day when the village welcomed the return of one of its hunting parties, just arrived from down the river. They had passed Ako and his fellows about sundown the night before and tried to persuade them to return. But no, they were bound for the land of the Sioux, where Ako meant to trade in furs and learn of the country; and the affable friar pronounced himself bound to undertake the great perils of an unknown land to preach to the Indians of the Upper Mississippi. So the red hunters let them pass—the boastful friar and his two companions. Little did the three know what experiences were to befall them before they saw again the lights of white men’s cabins.

On the day that the hunters returned, those who watched the fort saw two other canoes set out, this time going up the river. Here was a still more important event, for in one of the boats was the figure of La Salle himself. Six Frenchmen were with him, and also a Mohegan warrior whom they called the Wolf, from the name of his people. The Indians waited in wonderment. Was the fort being deserted? Not yet, for the mysterious Tonty, his arm swinging heavily at his side, passed about among the men at the fort giving orders in the absence of his chief.

CHAPTER X

THE MYSTERIOUS HAND

The Indians of the Peoria village were interested spectators of the events which were being acted out by the band of Frenchmen. Father Membré lived in their town and they gave him respectful attention. Among themselves they talked much of his white friends within the stockaded walls of the fort. There were scarcely a dozen men with Tonty now, and upon them the Indians looked with a mixture of curiosity, contempt, and awe. Among them there were ship carpenters and soldiers, on some of whose faces rascality and cowardice were written. Had the Peorias not seen them nervous with fear while Nicanopé told them of the imaginary terrors of the river, and at a public council, too,—what could more clearly stamp the coward?

The old friar Ribourde shuffled about in his gray gown and bare sandaled feet, saying mass among the Frenchmen as Membré did among the Peorias. The strong-armed man, Le Meilleur, whom his comrade called La Forge, swung the hammer on the red-hot iron and mended the tools of the French at the precious forge. Down by the river, Moyse Hillaret and La Roze and the other shipbuilders and carpenters laid out and joined together the ribs of the huge wooden skeleton. Among these brawny men was a muscular young lad from Paris named Renault, L’Espérance, a brave-hearted young servant of La Salle, and Boisrondet, a man of higher birth than the rest and a special friend of Tonty. But it was not of these men that the Peorias talked most to the bands of hunters and warriors returning now to the village—it was of La Salle, the white chief, who had left the fort, and of Tonty, the man of mystery, who remained in charge of the garrison.

The Indians could not understand the curious commander of the fort. Why was his skin darker than that of his comrades and his hair so black—like the hair of their own Indian women, though not so straight? But most of all they wondered at the queer way in which he used his right hand. They told the newly arrived Indians of the day the white men came to the village. At the feast of welcome Tonty had used his left hand always as he ate of their sagamite and meat, and now they watched him as he passed here and there among his men. If he pulled a canoe up on shore or grasped a piece of timber down at the shipyard it was never with his right hand. Yet they had seen him deal blows with that mysterious right hand which had the effect of an Indian war club. With what strange “medicine” his powerful arm was gifted they could not tell; and it was partly for that reason that they feared him. Often, in the adventurous years that followed, red-skinned warriors in many parts of the Great Valley were startled and awed by the ease with which this man could by one heavy swing of his right hand break the teeth or crack the skull of an unruly Indian.

If the Peorias could have looked off into lands they had never seen and read the events of other times and places, as it now seemed to them that La Salle could do, they might have found the explanation of the mystery. Not many years before the white men came to the Peoria village, the little island of Sicily, in the far-away Mediterranean Sea, was in the throes of a bitter war. Along its coast grim-mouthed ships of war and galleys, propelled by the oars of convicts and captives, bore the flags of three nations—France, Holland, and Spain.

In one of the battles the figure of Henry de Tonty might have been seen fighting under the flag of France. For many years he had so fought—four campaigns on ships of war and three on galleys—and had gained high rank in the service. But he was not of French birth. His father had come to Paris as an exile from Naples in the sunny land of Italy after taking a prominent part in the Neapolitan Revolt of 1647. Sicily like Naples had long been under the hated rule of Spain, and now the Sicilians rising in revolt had called upon the French for help. The Spaniards, hard pressed, called a Dutch fleet in to aid them. So the war was waged, now on sea, now on land; and Tonty, in the thick of the battle, rejoiced in a struggle to free men of his father’s country from the Spanish yoke.

The cannon flashed and roared. Men fell all about him. A hand grenade, thrown by the enemy, burst near by into a thousand pieces and tore away the right hand of Henry de Tonty. He was captured by the enemy and held prisoner for six months. Then he was released in exchange for the governor’s son. In place of his lost member he substituted a hand of metal which he wore encased in a glove. But now peace had settled upon the Mediterranean, and the restless Tonty joined La Salle and came across the sea to where the land was young and adventure lay in every river valley.

In time the Indians learned the story of his “medicine” arm; and throughout the Great Valley, from the Lakes to the mouth of the Mississippi, Tonty came to be known to the tribes as the “Man with the Iron Hand.”

CHAPTER XI

“WE ARE ALL SAVAGES”

The winter was a long one in the valley of the Illinois. Food was scarce and the little band at Fort Crèvecœur had many hungry days. Once there passed the Peoria village a canoe headed downstream, and in it the Indians recognized two of the men who had set out with La Salle. The canoe was loaded to the gunwale with provisions. Where could the white chief have found such a store? The answer came later from the lips of Chassagoac himself when he returned from his winter hunt.

Trailing through the woods one day Chassagoac had seen the smoke of a camp-fire. Drawing near with two of his men he met a strange white man who presented him with a red blanket, a kettle, and some hatchets and knives. Chassagoac soon learned that the stranger was La Salle, the chief of the company of white men who had settled near the Peoria village. The white man knew the fame of Chassagoac, and the two chiefs sat down for a long conference, during which La Salle told of all the things that had happened at the village and explained to the red chief that his men at the fort were in sad need of food. If the red brother would furnish them with provisions he would repay him on his return from the East.

Then, as the kindly Chassagoac promised his help, the white chief went on to tell of his plans. He told of the fort and the great ship that was being built on the riverside. Even now he was on his way to the East to make peace with the Iroquois for the Illinois, and he would come back with arms for their defense and with merchandise to distribute among them; and many more Frenchmen would return with him to establish themselves at the Illinois villages. He told of his plans for a great expedition down the river to its mouth, whence he could set up more easy trade and bring from across the sea goods of all kinds for the tribes of the Illinois.

Chassagoac was deeply interested, and with generous hand he filled a canoe with stores from the caches of the deserted Kaskaskia village near at hand. He urged the white man to return soon, and assured him that what had been said about the beauty and the easy passage of the Mississippi was all true. Then after courteous leave-taking the two chiefs separated. La Salle continued his way up the river, while two of his men paddled the canoe full of supplies down the stream to Fort Crèvecœur. After parting from La Salle, Chassagoac went on with his hunting until the day when he came once more to the village of his people. Here his arrival was welcomed by the Indians, whose fears were perhaps somewhat quieted by his stanch belief in the white men. He spent much time with the gray-robed friars and talked with them of how he had met the black-gowned Marquette on the distant shores of the Lake of the Illinois and had given him part of the deer he had killed. Indeed, Chassagoac thought so well of the teachings of the friars that he agreed to follow their strange manitou, and so was baptized after the manner of the Frenchmen.

Meanwhile two more Frenchmen slipped down the river past the village to the fort, which they reached about the middle of April. At once there was much stirring among the whites, and soon Tonty with a few of his men passed up the river toward the village of the Kaskaskias. The Indians were curious at this new move. Some time before the veteran Ako, together with the Picard and the friar Hennepin, had set off down the stream, and La Salle with more men had gone up the river the day after. Now even Tonty was departing.

The Indians watched closely the handful of men who remained in the stockaded walls. Nöel Le Blanc and Nicolas Laurent, the two men who had lately arrived at the fort, had come with orders from La Salle to Tonty to build another fort at the upper village. In Tonty’s absence, Le Blanc seemed to be moving about like a restless spirit, talking earnestly among the men. With the blacksmith and the ship carpenters in particular he appeared to be plotting some deep-laid scheme.

Into the village of the Peorias, likewise, crept strange whisperings and rumors. Men from other villages came to tell them that their distrusted neighbors, the Miamis, had been seeking an alliance with the hated Iroquois. Was the fort to be abandoned, and were the Frenchmen to creep off by twos and threes leaving the Peorias to be eaten by the Iroquois?

Presently those who watched the fort saw another party start out. This time there were five men in the canoe—Father Ribourde, Boisrondet, L’Espérance, and two others, Petit-Bled and Boisdardenne. After their departure a strange commotion arose within the walls of the fort. Ship carpenters ran here and there plundering the cabins: they tore down the doors, and pillaged and robbed on every hand. They even overturned the effects in the lodgings of the priests. Hillaret and the brawny blacksmith forced open the storehouse and brought out powder and balls and arms, and furs and merchandise. From every corner of the fortress La Roze and Le Blanc and their fellow-conspirators gathered things of value. Then, loaded down with guns and beaver skins and fine linen and moccasins, they made for the riverside. One man with a sharp instrument scratched on the gleaming white timbers of the half-built ship the words, “Nous sommes tous Sauvages”—“We are all savages”—and the date: “Ce 15 A—1680.” Then off into the woods they vanished, leaving the fort wrecked and plundered.

Meantime night had come upon the aged friar and his four companions on their way to Tonty at the upper village. Petit-Bled and Boisdardenne, in league with the conspirators at the fort, rose up and spiked the guns of L’Espérance and Boisrondet, and made off with the canoe after their fellows, leaving the Recollet and the two young men to find their way on foot and without means of defense to the village of the Kaskaskias.

Tonty heard the news of the mutiny with consternation and anger, and hastened back to the ruined fort. Everything of value seemed to have been taken, except the forge and some tools and arms too heavy for the deserters to carry on their flight. With this freight the heavy-hearted Tonty made his way back to the Kaskaskia village, where the lodges were once more filled by the returning warriors and hunters. After sending, by two routes, messengers to tell La Salle of the catastrophe, Tonty prepared for a new order of life. The fort and its garrison no longer gave him protection; but the Man with the Iron Hand was no coward. With his fragment of a band he entered the village and asked the Kaskaskias if he might live in their midst. They welcomed him to their kettles and their cabins, and shared with him and his men their food and their buffalo robes. The band of thirty or more that had come into the valley a few months before was now reduced to six—Tonty and his friend Boisrondet, the two young men, L’Espérance and Renault the Parisian, and the two friars—Father Membré having come up from the lower village.

CHAPTER XII

THE DEATH OF CHASSAGOAC

The summer of 1680 was an unquiet season, when every whisper of the wind seemed to bring ill news. Persistent rumors came to the Illinois of an alliance between the Iroquois and the Miamis. Seeing their fears the energetic man with the “medicine” arm began to teach his red brothers the arts of the white man: he showed them the use of guns and taught them how to fight as the white men fought.

One day a runner came into the village with news of the death of La Salle, followed a little later by another Indian who confirmed the evil tidings. The Illinois saw gloom in the face of Tonty; but his eyes flashed no less of fire and his step lacked none of its usual vigor, for he was every inch a chief. Then into the village a new rumor came whispering to the Indians that this dark-visaged chieftain with flowing hair was no Frenchman at all; that he came from a country far beyond France whose people bore no kinship or allegiance to the great King of the French.

Surely the situation looked worse for the Illinois with each passing day. If the white men were in league with the Iroquois, and if their kinsmen, the Miamis, had joined the enemy, they and their wives and children might well fear the time when the war cry of the painted Iroquois would echo in the valley of the Illinois. Defeated and overwhelmed, they would be eaten by their enemies. Did not the tribes of the Five Nations thus treat their captives? Consternation rose on the wings of fear. What hope had the Illinois against the tribes from the East?

From their long houses at the other end of the Great Lakes the famous Iroquois warriors had spread desolation among a hundred tribes. They had conquered and subjugated whole nations. Toward the south as far as the Cherokees and Catawbas they had made easy conquests. North of the Iroquois were the French on the St. Lawrence. Since Champlain had taken sides with the Canadian Indians against the Iroquois, three quarters of a century ago, the tribes of the Five Nations had hated the French. But they did not dare attack them. So now the West offered the best field for their eager ravages. From the Dutch in New Netherland, and later from their English successors, they had purchased guns and ammunition, and they had set their cruel hearts upon laying waste the valley of the Illinois—at least so the tribes of the West had heard and believed.

The Illinois had fought off the Iroquois before. Could they do it again? Their own warriors were experts with bows and arrows, and some of them had guns now; but the Iroquois warriors had every man his gun, and also his shield to ward off the feeble arrows of Western tribes. By their attacks other tribes had been almost exterminated, and their captives burned by slow fires with inconceivable tortures. What better chance had the Illinois, particularly if the treacherous Miamis joined the foe and the white men also proved to be enemies? So they watched Tonty narrowly; but the dark-eyed chief, with his forge and his tools, his restless stride, and his proud bearing, lived among them, and heeded not their anxious or suspicious looks.

The year seemed truly a calamitous one for the Indians. It was in those trying days that some Illinois were gathered in one of the long-roofed lodges, where on a bed made soft by the skins of buffalo lay a man close unto death. About him stood the men upon whom the nation relied to heal the sick and cure the wounded, to drive away the evil spirits, and to conjure the good spirits—the mysterious medicine men. They had worked long with the man who lay upon the bed, for he was a chief great in the councils of the Illinois nation.

A skillful hunter, a brave warrior, the greatest chief of the Illinois, Chassagoac lay dying. Five years ago he had known Father Marquette, and now just a little while ago he had been baptized by one of the gray-robed friars who belonged to the band of his friend La Salle. But as his death came on, it was to his own people that he turned. The manitou of the French was so far away, while the medicine men of his tribe were so near. So they gathered about him with their dances and their incantations; they made passes over his body and muttered strange words; they lifted their eyes and their voices toward the four winds of the heavens; and they waved rattles in a vain effort to appease the spirit that sought to rob them of their chief. It was useless. Chassagoac had looked about him for the last time. For a moment it was quiet in the lodge. Then a long despairing wail rent the air; and outside among the lodges every man and woman and child knew that the spirit of the great Chassagoac had gone out of him forever.

CHAPTER XIII

THE IROQUOIS COME

The level stretch of land along the north bank of the Illinois River, where lay the lodges of the Kaskaskias, swarmed with hundreds of Indian braves who were eager to be off into the woods and across the plains. What was so stupid as life among the lodges with the women and old men when the far-off wilds called them, when streams might carry their pirogues into lands where their enemies lay sleeping and unwatchful, when the trails to north and south and east and west might lead them into woods and fields where bountiful game would fall before their arrows? Why should the white chief make so serious objection? Other bands had set off some days before in spite of his protests.

No one had seen signs of the Iroquois, and the alarm raised so often began to lose its terror. Besides, was Tonty such a good prophet after all? He had told them that La Salle would return by the end of May, and now May had long been gone and sure tidings had come that La Salle was dead.

It was not yet fall. Across the river the leaves of the trees, still fresh and green, were turning and rippling in the winds. Even the sound of their whispering said to the Indians: “Soon we will be dropping off and the frosts will come. Hunting is good. Come away into the woods.” And they went.

September found not half the warriors left in the village; but Tonty and his three young men were still there. The two gray-robed Recollets—one short and sturdy and young, and the other who had seen the seasons change as often as the old men in the village—withdrew to a cabin in the midst of a field some distance from the town. La Salle had not come back; nor had the round-faced priest, who strutted so pompously down to the water’s edge in February and paddled off with Ako and the Picard toward the sunset.

The Indians hoped Tonty would continue to stay with them. More than four months he had lived in their midst, and now it was twice that time since he had first come into their valley. He dealt with them honestly and without fear, and he had taught them many new ways. The Illinois were archers whose fame had spread throughout the length and breadth of the valley of the Mississippi; but Tonty had shown them how to use the guns that spat fire and dropped a foe while the bow was bending—the guns that made the Iroquois so dreaded.

In spite of privation and discouragement, desertions and loss of friends, Tonty gave no sign that he had lost heart. If only the Indians could hear again the reassuring words of the lamented Chassagoac and forget the warnings of his still suspicious brother, Nicanopé, they could learn to trust the French and to love this white leader like a brother.

Once Tonty had set off in a canoe to see if he could learn at the settlement at Mackinac some news of his chief who all people said was dead. The Indians protested against his departure, but in vain. He did not go far, however, for the river was at that time so low that he ran upon shoals and was obliged to return to the village.

Toward the middle of September came the hoped-for rains, and one day Tonty and his men drew their canoe out of the water, turned it upside down, and began to renew its coat of gum ready for another trial of the river. Some of the Indians watched him as he worked with his curious left-handed movements. Others were too busy entertaining a friendly Shawnee who was paying a visit to the village. As night came on, the Shawnee departed, making his way toward the south and west. The rounded roofs of the village caught the arrows shot by the setting sun and then sank into dusk. Under each roof Indian men stretched out upon buffalo hides and lost themselves in dreams. The women arranged the lodges for the night and then lay down beside brown little papooses whose round eyes had long been closed. So the quiet night settled down upon the village. Three times would the oaks along the river sow their leaves to the winds of winter before another such peaceful night would come upon the village and its people.

The next day Indians of the village saw the Shawnee come hurrying back, cross the river, and rush hot-foot into the town. “The Iroquois!” he panted to the excited chiefs. Two leagues off to the southwest, on the banks of the Aramoni, a tributary of the Illinois River, he had discovered an army of five or six hundred Iroquois coming to attack the village. Turmoil fell upon the Kaskaskias. Where were their warriors? More than half of them were scattered to the four quarters of the valley. Only four or five hundred remained. And where were the guns which Tonty had so carefully trained them to use? Gone for the most part with the absent warriors. Only a few were left, with ammunition for three or four shots apiece. The rest of the braves had only bows and arrows and war clubs. Tonty had been right, but it was no time now to lament.

A reconnoitring party sent out to spy upon the enemy soon came back in great excitement. About five hundred Iroquois were encamped along the Aramoni. They had guns and pistols and sabers. Most of them had shields of wood or of leather, and some wore wooden breastplates. And with the Iroquois were a hundred Miamis, armed with bows and arrows. The anger of the Illinois rose with their fear. The Miamis, their neighbors and kin, should smart for this afterward. But the spying party had still further news to tell. Among the moving figures of the enemy they had seen one arrayed in a black robe and a Jesuit’s cowl. Calmer eyes would have seen that it was only an Iroquois chief decked out in a black coat and hat. But the heated imagination of the scouts saw a French priest; while in another figure they made sure they saw La Salle himself.

If the village had been in a turmoil before, now it was in a fury. Their worst fears, then, had come true: the French were all traitors. Even Tonty had deceived them and had his own reasons for trying to get out of the village before the Iroquois came. Like angry bees the Indians swarmed to the lodge of Tonty. “Now,” said one of their chiefs, “we know you for a friend of the Iroquois. The winds of rumor have told us no lies. We are lost, for the enemy are too many for us and you and the Frenchmen are their friends.”

In the midst of the furious, gesticulating crowd of warriors Tonty stood calm. “I will show you that I am not a friend of the Iroquois,” he replied. “If need be, I will die with you. I and my men will help you fight your battle.”

Their anger turned to joy as they thought that with such a leader the good spirits might yet give them victory. There was much to do before the battle. With swift hands they gathered together a supply of corn; and when night came ghostly figures moved to and fro as they embarked the women and children in their long pirogues. Each wooden canoe would hold thirty or more, and there were hundreds to crowd the little fleet. With a guard of fifty or sixty men the boats slipped out, one after another, upon the dark waters. Noiseless paddles dipped in and out as the barks, filled with provisions and the closely huddled figures, shot down the stream. They passed the black mouth of the Aramoni, and after several hours came to a spot six leagues below the village. Here, in a place made almost inaccessible by the river on one side and a swamp on the other, they landed and set up camp.

In the Kaskaskia village there was no rest that night. The young braves were preparing for the battle of the morrow. By long rows of camp-fires, kettles were hung. Dogs were killed and cooked, for the occasion was one deserving of so great a ceremony. By turns they feasted and danced in the flickering light of the fires—weird dances, punctuated with howls and whoops. The flames of the camp-fires cast the shadows of the dancers across the open space and against the walls of the lodges like ghostly, ever-changing spirits; and into the night air rose chants, rhythmic and uncanny. All the long night through the Indians kept up their rites to work themselves into a proper spirit for the attack upon the Iroquois—a fight against odds wherein they needed the help of every manitou or spirit that could aid them.

Gradually the fires die out as in the east a faint light begins to spread. The day has come at last, the day which for years the Illinois have dreaded. They gather with fresh war paint and ready weapons—bows and arrows, heavy-headed clubs, or skull-crackers, and the few guns that are left. Tonty is there with two of his men. L’Espérance is to remain in the village to guard the papers of La Salle; and the two friars, ignorant of the excitement, are a league away in their retreat in the fields.

Together the warriors crowd to the river bank, Tonty and Boisrondet and Renault in the lead, with the naked and painted Indians howling and whooping about them. Their pirogues cross the stream in a trice. Through the strip of oaks, over the hill and out across the open meadow, the warriors, white and red, dash on to the conflict. They approach the ranks of the Iroquois, but halt in an open field in sight of the enemy.

Tonty will make a last effort at peace and is given a wampum necklace as a truce offering. Handing his gun to a friend, he walks across the intervening space attended by a single Illinois. The Indians watch him closely as he nears the foe. There is a sharp, deadly volley from the Iroquois. Tonty stops, and sending back the Indian who is with him, goes on alone. Arrow and ball fly about him, but he reaches the lines unscathed. Iroquois warriors swallow him from the view of the anxious Illinois. Only the Indian who has crossed half the open space with him sees the knife of an Iroquois flash out and bury itself in the side of the white chief. Then the staggering figure is lost even to his view. A moment later his hat is raised upon the end of a gun high above the heads of the foe.

With a cry of rage the whole force of the Illinois breaks again into a charge, furious to avenge such treachery. The young Boisrondet and Renault are in the lead, their hair flowing back in their speed, their set faces full of the lust of battle and revenge. The twisting, howling figures of five hundred Indians hurl themselves upon the ranks of the enemy. Then like fiends they fight. The report of the Iroquois guns is like the cracking of twigs in the forest to the new-found courage of the Illinois. Their war cries rise above it sharp and shrill. Swift arrows fly like driving hail. Heavy war clubs crash on Iroquois shield or on painted head and body. Even the vaunted Iroquois cannot hold against them. Their left side weakens, then yields, and gives back for half a league across the meadow.

Then goes up the sudden cry that Tonty is alive. Out of the press of battling foes he comes motioning them to hold. Gradually the din and the tumult cease. The Illinois withdraw and count their losses. Tonty reaches them, weak with the loss of blood from a gaping wound in his side, but he carries in his hand a wampum peace offering from the Iroquois.

CHAPTER XIV

THE SCATTERING OF THE TRIBES

Throughout the fight Tonty’s life hung upon a thread. An impetuous Onondaga had stabbed him in the side, but fortunately the knife had glanced from a rib. Another Indian seized him by the hair; and a third raised his hat upon a gun. Then one of the chiefs recognized him as a white man and intervened. He was carried into the midst of the camp, where the chiefs gathered about him and heard his plea for peace. The Illinois, said Tonty, were just as much the friends of the governor of Canada as were the Iroquois. Why should the Iroquois make war upon them?

It was an unquiet parley. Behind Tonty stood an Indian warrior with ready knife; and now and then as they talked he wound his fingers in the white man’s hair and raised his black locks as if to scalp him. Outside of the circle the fight went on. Then came the report that Iroquois men were killed and wounded and that the left side was yielding. Dismayed, the chiefs asked their white captive how many men were in the fight. Tonty, seeing a chance to prevent hostilities, replied that there were twelve hundred Illinois and that fifty Frenchmen were fighting with them. Overcome with consternation at these figures, the chiefs hastened to give Tonty the present of wampum and beg him to make peace for the Iroquois.

The Illinois with their wounded white leader and his two men turned back to the village. A league from home they came upon Father Membré hurrying out to meet them. The sound of guns had brought him from his cabin in the fields back of the town. They crossed the river together, and Tonty was glad enough to lie down in one of the lodges and let the priest and young men tend his wound.

Scarcely had the Illinois reached their lodges when, looking back, they saw little groups of Iroquois on the other side of the river. A few of these soon found means of crossing, and they hovered near the village in a pretense of seeking food. But the Illinois, who were not children in the art of Indian warfare, were well aware of the ways of the treacherous Iroquois, and they watched these straggling bands with gloomy foreboding.

By a magnificent sally the Illinois had daunted their enemy, and Tonty’s exaggeration of their numbers had completed the impression of their power in the minds of the Iroquois. But the Illinois well knew that they were no match for the Iroquois with their abundance of arms and ammunition and their allies, the Miamis. Sooner or later the Iroquois would learn the true numbers of the villagers. Then the fierce warriors of the Five Nations would harry them until they found an opportunity to crush them out of existence. Massacres, tortures, and burnings could be their only possible end if they stayed in the village. After their warriors were slain, what of the women and children, anxiously waiting in the secluded refuge down the river?

Tonty and his men were probably safe, for the Iroquois had too much fear of the French in Canada to harm them without great provocation. But the Illinois were not safe. So they deserted their village, took to their pirogues, and passed downstream to join their wives and old men.

In their hearts the Indians saw the wisdom of flight, for they knew what had happened in the past. They did not forget the fate of other nations whom the Iroquois had practically exterminated. Would the invasion of the Illinois country have any other end? Yet it was with heavy and reluctant hearts that they gave up their lodges to the hated foe; and bands of warriors trailed back up the river for another look at their one-time home. Appearing on the hills a short distance behind the village they gazed down upon the ruined lodges which had been fired by the Iroquois, who had piled timber and half-burned posts in the form of a rude fort. In a lodge some distance away Tonty had been left still suffering from his wound and attended by his five men.

More and more of the Illinois gathered on the hill, until the array of warriors alarmed the Iroquois, who still nursed the belief that twelve hundred Illinois were haunting their rear. The Illinois continued their watch day by day and presently saw two men leave the town and climb the hill toward them. They soon distinguished the peculiar swing of their friend Tonty. With him was an Iroquois Indian. Joyfully they welcomed him and listened to his message. The Iroquois wished to make a treaty of peace and had sent one of their men as a hostage.

The Illinois in turn sent back with Tonty one of their own young men, and negotiations were soon begun. But the peacemaker had been badly chosen, for the young Indian, eager for a treaty of peace, promised everything and finally revealed to the Iroquois the true number of the Illinois warriors. The Iroquois said little to the Illinois messenger, but sent him back to his people that night to tell the chiefs to come next day within half a league of the fort and conclude the peace. Then they turned on Tonty with wrath and reproaches for having deceived them.

The next day at noon Illinois and Iroquois met not far from the village. The Iroquois, hiding their true plans, gave presents to their late opponents and bound themselves to a firm and lasting peace. But Tonty, who was not misled, managed to send Father Membré to the Illinois to tell them that the peace was only a pretense, that the Iroquois were making elm-bark canoes, and that if the Illinois did not flee at once they would be followed and their whole tribe massacred.

At night the Iroquois called Tonty and Father Membré into the rude fort, and having seated the white leader they laid before him presents consisting of six bundles of valuable beaver skins. By the first two presents the Iroquois meant to inform Governor Frontenac that they would not eat his children and that he should not be angry at what they had done. The third bundle of skins was to be a plaster for the white man’s wound. The fourth represented oil to be rubbed on the white men’s limbs because of the long journeys they had taken. With the fifth they told Tonty how bright the sun was; and with the sixth they said that he should profit by it and return the next day to the French settlements.

“When are you going to leave the Illinois country?” asked the dauntless white man.

“Not until we have eaten these Illinois,” replied the angered chiefs.

With a quick motion of his foot Tonty kicked the beaver skins from him—an unpardonable offense among Indians. Angry looks and gesticulations from the Indians greeted this act, but they hesitated to lay hands upon Tonty for he was a friend of Frontenac, the powerful governor of New France. Perhaps, too, they realized, better even than did the Illinois, the power of his heavy right hand, for he had lived in the land of the Iroquois before he had come out into these Western wilds.

Scarcely restraining themselves, they drove the two men from the fort. Tonty and the friar returned to their comrades at their lodge. No longer was their presence in the Iroquois camp useful to the Illinois or safe for themselves. Hardly expecting to see the dawn, they passed the night on guard resolved to sell their lives as dearly as possible. But they were not molested, and when day came they embarked for the far-off settlements. They were the last white men to leave the valley of the Illinois where carnage and woe were to reign.

The journey of Tonty and his companions was a difficult one, and calamity met them early on the way. After some five hours’ paddling, they stopped to mend their canoe. The old friar Ribourde went off in the woods a little distance to pray, and was set upon and murdered by a roving band of Kickapoos. After searching for him in vain, the rest of his party went on. By short journeys they reached the Lake of the Illinois and turned northward. Winter overtook them; their food gave out; and they fell to eating acorns and grubbing up roots from beneath the snow. When their moccasins wore out,—for most of their travel was now by land,—they made themselves shoes out of a cloak which the murdered friar had left behind. Weeks passed by as they journeyed on. They came now and then upon deserted Indian camps, and, desperate with hunger, they tried to eat the leather thongs which bound together the poles of the Indian lodges. They even chewed the tough rawhide of an old Indian shield which they had found. Tonty was sick almost constantly with fever and scarcely able to walk. Not until December did the party of five men reach Green Bay, where at last they were given a warm welcome by the Indians and some Frenchmen in a Pottawattomie village.