Chapter 4

"It is well the good friars are away making their retreat," said Tonty to Boisrondet and Étienne Renault while they paddled as fast as they could across the river with the Illinois. "Poor old L'Esperance must be making a retreat, too."

"I have not myself seen him since last night," Boisrondet remembered.

"He put out in a canoe when the Indians were embarking their women and children," said Étienne Renault. "I saw him go."

And so it proved afterwards. But L'Esperance had slipped away to bring back Father Membré and Father Ribourde to tend the wounded and dying.

Having crossed the river and reached the prairie, Tonty and his allies saw the Iroquois. They came prancing and screeching on their savage march, and would have been ridiculous if they had not been appalling. These Hodenosaunee, or People of the Long House, as they called themselves, were the most terrible force in the New World. Tonty saw at once it would go hard with the Illinois nation. Never at any time as hardy as their invaders, who by frequent attacks had broken their courage, and weakened by the absence of their best warriors, they wavered in their first charge.

He put down his gun and offered to carry a peace belt to the Iroquois to stop the fight. The Illinois gladly gave him a wampum girdle and sent a young Indian with him. Boisrondet and Étienne Renault also walked at his side into the open space between two barbaric armies. The Iroquois did not stop firing when he held up and waved the belt in his left hand. Bullets spattered on the hummocky sod of the prairie around him.

"Go back," Tonty said to Boisrondet and Renault and the young Indian. "What need is there of so many? Take the lad back, Boisrondet."

They hesitated to leave him.

"Go back!" he repeated sharply, so they turned, and he ran on alone. The Iroquois guns seemed to flash in his face. It was like throwing himself among furious wolves. Snarling lips and snaky eyes and twisting sinuous bodies made nightmares around him. He felt himself seized; a young warrior stabbed him in the side. The knife glanced on a rib, but blood ran down his buckskins and filled his throat.

"Stop!" shouted an Iroquois chief. "This is a Frenchman; his ears are not pierced."

Tonty's swarthy skin was blanching with the anguish of his wound, which turned him faint. His black hair clung in rings to a forehead wet with cold perspiration. But he held the wampum belt aloft and spat the blood out of his mouth.

"Iroquois! The Illinois nation are under the protection of the French king and Governor Frontenac! I demand that you leave them in peace!"

A young brave snatched his hat and lifted it on the end of a gun. At that the Illinois began a frenzied attack, thinking he was killed. Tonty was spun around as in a whirlpool. He felt a hand in his hair and a knife at his scalp.

"I never," he thought to himself, "was in such perplexity in my life!"

"Burn him!" shouted some.

"But he is French!" others cried. "Let him go!"

Through all the uproar he urged the peace belt and threatened them with France. The wholesome dread which Governor Frontenac had given to that name had effect on them. Besides, they had not surprised the Illinois, and if they declared a truce, time would be gained to consider their future movements.

The younger braves were quieted, and old warriors gave Tonty a belt to carry back to the Illinois. He staggered across the prairie. Father Ribourde and Father Membré, who had just reached the spot, ran to meet him, and supported him as he half fainted from loss of blood.

Tonty and his allies withdrew across the river. But the Iroquois, instead of retreating, followed. Seeing what must happen, Tonty thought it best for the Illinois to give up their town and go to protect their women and children, while he attempted as long as possible to keep the invaders at bay. Lodges were set on fire, and the Illinois withdrew quietly down river, leaving some of their men in the bluffs less than a league from the town, to bring them word of the result. The Frenchmen, partially rebuilding their own lodge, which had been wrecked when their goods were thrown in the river, stood their ground in the midst of insulting savages.

For the Iroquois, still determined on war and despoiling, opened maize pits, scattering and burning the grain; trampled corn in the fields; and even pulled the dead off their scaffolds. They were angry at the French for threatening them with that invisible power of France, and bent on chasing the Illinois. Yet Tonty was able to force a kind of treaty between them and the retreating nation, through the men left in the bluffs. As soon as they had made it, however, they began canoes of elm bark, to follow the Illinois down river.

Two or three days passed, while the Frenchmen sat covering the invaded tribe's retreat. They scarcely slept at night. Their enemies prowled around their lodge or celebrated dances on the ruins of the town. The river flowed placidly, and the sun shone on desolation and on the unaltered ferny buttresses of the great rock and its castellated neighbors. Tonty heard with half delirious ears the little creatures which sing in the grass and fly before man, but return to their singing as soon as he passes by. The friars dressed and tended his fevered wound, and when the Iroquois sent for him to come to a council, Father Membré went with him.

Within the rude fort of posts and poles saved from ruined lodges, which the Iroquois had built for themselves, adding a ruff of freshly chopped trees, the two white men sat down in a ring of glowering savages. Six packs of beaver skins were piled ready for the oration; and the orator rose and addressed Tonty.

With the first two the Indian spokesman promised that his nation would not eat Count Frontenac's children, those cowardly Illinois.

The next was a plaster to heal Tonty's wound.

The next was oil to anoint him and the Récollets, so their joints would move easily in traveling.

The next said that the sun was bright.

And the sixth and last pack ordered the French to get up and leave the country.

When the speaker sat down, Tonty came to his feet and looked at the beaver skins piled before them. Then he looked around the circle of hard weather-beaten faces and restless eyes, and thanked the Iroquois for their gift.

"But I would know," said Tonty, "how soon you yourselves intend to leave the country and let the Illinois be in peace?"

There was a growl, and a number of the braves burst out with the declaration that they intended to eat Illinois flesh first.

Tonty raised his foot and kicked the beaver skins from him. In that very way they would have rejected a one-sided treaty themselves. Up they sprang with drawn knives and drove him and Father Membré from the fort.

All night the French stood guard for fear of being surprised and massacred in their lodge. At daybreak the chiefs ordered them to go without waiting another hour, and gave them a leaky boat.

Tonty had protected the retreat of the Illinois as long as he could. With the two Récollets, Boisrondet, young Renault, and L'Esperance, and with little else, he set out up the river.

IV.

THE UNDESPAIRING NORMAN.

"The northward current of the eastern shore of Lake Michigan and the southward current of the western shore," says a writer exact in knowledge, "naturally made the St. Joseph portage a return route to Canada, and the Chicago portage an outbound one." But though La Salle was a careful observer and must have known that what was then called the Chekago River afforded a very short carrying to the Desplaines or upper Illinois, he saw fit to use the St. Joseph both coming and going.

His march to Fort Frontenac he afterwards described in a letter to one of the creditors interested in his discoveries.

"Though the thaws of approaching spring greatly increased the difficulty of the way, interrupted as it was everywhere by marshes and rivers, to say nothing of the length of the journey, which is about five hundred leagues in a direct line, and the danger of meeting Indians of four or five different nations, through whose country we were to pass, as well as an Iroquois army which we knew was coming that way; though we must suffer all the time from hunger; sleep on the open ground, and often without food; watch by night and march by day, loaded with baggage, such as blanket, clothing, kettle, hatchet, gun, powder, lead, and skins to make moccasins; sometimes pushing through thickets, sometimes climbing rocks covered with ice and snow; sometimes wading whole days through marshes where the water was waist deep or even more,--all this did not prevent me from going to Fort Frontenac to bring back the things we needed and to learn myself what had become of my vessel."

Carrying their canoes where the river was frozen, and finally leaving them hidden near where the town of Joliet now stands, La Salle and his men pushed on until they reached the fort built at the mouth of the St. Joseph. Here he found the two voyageurs he had sent to search for the Griffin. They said they had been around the lake and could learn nothing of her. He then directed them to Tonty, while he marched up the eastern shore. This Michigan region was debatable ground among the Indians, where they met to fight; and he left significant marks on the trees, to make prowlers think he had a large war party. A dozen or twenty roving savages, ready to pounce like ferocious wildcats on a camp, always peeled white places on the trees, and cut pictures there of their totem, or tribe mark, and the scalps and prisoners they had taken. They respected a company more numerous than themselves, and avoided it.

Stopping to nurse the sick when some fell ill of exposure, or to build canoes when canoes were needed, La Salle did not reach Fort Niagara until Easter, and it was May when Fort Frontenac came into view.

No man ever suffered more from treachery. Before he could get together the supplies he needed, trouble after trouble fell upon him. The men that Tonty had sent to tell him about the destruction of Fort Crèvecoeur were followed by others who brought word that the deserters had destroyed his forts at the St. Joseph River and Niagara, and carried off all the goods. The Griffin was certainly lost. And before going back to the Illinois country he was obliged to chase these fellows and take from them what could be recovered. But when everybody else seemed to be against him, it was much comfort to remember he had a faithful lieutenant while the copper-handed Italian lived.

La Salle gathered twenty-five men of trades useful to him, and another outfit with all that he needed for a ship, having made new arrangements with his creditors; and going by way of Michilimackinac, he reached the St. Joseph early in November.

Whenever, in our own day, we see the Kankakee still gliding along its rocky bed, or the solemn Illinois spreading betwixt wooded banks, it is easy to imagine a birch canoe just appearing around a bend, carrying La Salle or Tonty, and rowed by buckskin-clad voyageurs. On the Kankakee thousands of buffaloes filled the plains, and La Salle's party killed many, preparing the flesh in dried flakes by smoking it.

The buffaloes were left behind when they approached the great town on the Illinois. La Salle glanced up at the rock he wanted fortified, but no palisade or Frenchman was to be seen.

"It seems very quiet," he said to the men in his canoe, "and we have not passed a hunter. There--there is the meadow where the town stood; but where is the town?"

Heaps of ashes, charred poles, broken scaffolds, wolves prowling where papooses had played, crows whirling in black clouds or sitting in rows on naked branches, bones,--a horrible waste plain had taken the place of the town.

The Frenchmen scattered over it, eagerly seeking some trace of Tonty and his companions. They labored all day, until the sun set, among dreadful sights which they could never forget, without finding any clue to his fate.

They piled charred wood together and made a fire and camped among ruins. But La Salle lay awake all night, watching the sharp-pointed autumn stars march overhead, and suffering what must have seemed the most unendurable of all his losses.

Determined not to give up his friend, he rose next morning and helped the men hide their heavy freight in the rocks, leaving two of them to hide with and guard it, and went on down the Illinois River. On one bank the retreat of the invaded tribe could be traced, and on the other the dead camp-fires of the Iroquois who had followed them. But of Tonty and his Frenchmen there was still no sign.

La Salle saw the ruins of Fort Crèvecoeur and his deserted vessel. And so searching he came to the mouth of the Illinois and saw for the first time that river of his ambitions, the Mississippi. There he turned back, leaving a letter tied to a tree, on the chance of its sometime falling into the hands of Tonty. There was nothing to do but to take his men and goods from among the rocks near the destroyed town and return to Fort Miamis, on the St. Joseph, which some of his followers had rebuilt. The winter was upon them.

La Salle never sat and brooded over trouble. He was a man of action. Shut in with his men and goods, and obliged to wait until spring permitted him to take the next step, he began at once to work on Indian hunters, and to draw their tribes towards forming a settlement around the rock he meant to fortify on the Illinois. Had he been able to attach turbulent voyageurs to him as he attached native tribes, his heroic life would have ended in success even beyond his dreams. Tonty could better deal with ignorant men, his military training standing him in good stead; yet Tonty dared scarcely trust a voyageur out of his sight.

While Tonty and La Salle were passing through these adventures, the Récollet father, Louis Hennepin, and his two companions, sent by La Salle, explored the upper Mississippi. One of these was named Michael Ako; the other, Du Gay, a man from Picardy in France.

They left Fort Crèvecoeur on the last day of February, twenty-four hours before La Salle started northward, and entered the Mississippi on the 12th of March. The great food-stocked stream afforded them plenty of game, wild turkeys, buffaloes, deer, and fish. The adventurers excused themselves from observing the Lenten season set apart by the Church for fasting; but Father Hennepin said prayers several times a day. He was a great robust Fleming, with almost as much endurance as that hardy Norman, La Salle.

They had paddled about a month up river through the region where Marquette and Jolliet had descended, when one afternoon they stopped to repair their canoe and cook a wild turkey. Hennepin, with his sleeves rolled back, was daubing the canoe with pitch, and the others were busy at the fire, when a war whoop, followed by continuous yelling, echoed from forest to forest, and a hundred and twenty naked Sioux or Dacotah Indians sprang out of boats to seize them. It was no use for Father Hennepin to show a peace-pipe or offer fine tobacco. The Frenchmen were prisoners. And when these savages learned by questioning with signs, and by drawing on the sand with a stick, that the Miamis, whom they were pursuing to fight, were far eastward out of their reach, three or four old warriors laid their hands on Hennepin's shaven crown and began to cry and howl like little boys.

The friar in his long gray capote or hooded garment, which fell to his feet, girt about the waist by a rope called the cord of St. Francis, stood, with bare toes showing on his sandals, inclining his fat head with sympathy. He took out his handkerchief and wiped the old men's faces. Du Gay and Ako, in spite of the peril, laughed to see him daub the war paint.

"The good father hath no suspicion that these old wretches are dooming him to death," said Ako to Du Gay.

It appeared afterwards that this was what the ceremony meant. For several days the Frenchmen, carried northward in their captors' boats, expected to die. No calumet was smoked with them; and every night one of the old chiefs, named Aquipaguetin, who had lost a son in war and formed a particular intention of taking somebody's scalp for solace, sat by the prisoners stroking them and howling by the hour. One night when the Frenchmen were forced to make their fire at the end of the camp, Aquipaguetin sent word that he meant to finish them without more delay. But they gave him some goods out of the store La Salle had sent with them, and he changed his mind and concluded to wait awhile. He carried the bones of one of his dead relations, dried and wrapped in skins gaily ornamented with porcupine-quill work; and it was his custom to lay these bones before the tribe and request that everybody blow smoke on them. Of the Frenchmen, however, he demanded hatchets, beads, and cloth. This cunning old Sioux wanted to get all he could before the party reached their villages, where the spoil would be divided.

Nineteen days after their capture the prisoners were brought to a place which is now the site of St. Paul in the state of Minnesota, where the Sioux disbanded, scattering to their separate towns. They had finally smoked the peace-pipe with the Frenchmen; and now, fortunately without disagreement, portioned their white captives and distributed the goods. Father Hennepin was given to Aquipaguetin, who promptly adopted him as a son. The Flemish friar saw with disgust his gold-embroidered vestments, which a missionary always carried with him for the impressive celebration of mass, displayed on savage backs and greatly admired.

The explorers were really in the way of seeing as much of the upper Mississippi as they could desire. They were far north of the Wisconsin's mouth, where white men first entered the great river. The young Mississippi, clear as a mountain stream, gathered many small tributaries. St. Peter's joined it from a blue-earth channel. This rugged northern world was wonderfully beautiful, with valleys and heights and rocks and waterfalls.

The Sioux were tall, well-made Indians, and so active that the smaller Frenchmen could hardly keep up with them on the march. They sometimes carried Du Gay and Ako over streams, but the robust friar they forced to wade or swim; and when he lagged lame-footed with exhaustion across the prairies, they set fire to grass behind him, obliging him to take to his heels with them or burn. By adoption into the family of Aquipaguetin he had a large relationship thrust upon him, for the old weeper had many wives and children and other kindred. Hennepin indeed felt that he was not needed and might at any time be disposed of. He never had that confidence in his father Aquipaguetin which a son should repose in a parent.

He was separated from Ako and Du Gay, who were taken to other villages. By the time he reached father Aquepaguetin's house he was so exhausted, and his legs, cut by ice in the streams, were so swollen that he fell down on a bear robe. The village was on an island in a sheet of water afterwards called Lake Buade. Hennepin was kindly received by his new family, who fed him as well as they were able, for the Sioux had little food when they were not hunting. Seeing him so feeble, they gave him an Indian sweating bath, which he found good for his health. They made a lodge of skins so tight that it would hold heat, and put into it stones baked to a white heat. On these they poured water and shut Hennepin in the steam until he sweated freely.

The Sioux had two kinds of lodges--one somewhat resembling those of the Illinois, the other a cone of poles with skins stretched around, called a tepee.

Father Hennepin did little missionary work among these Indians. He suffered much from hunger, being a man who loved good cheer. But the tribes went on a buffalo hunt in July and killed plenty of meat. All that northern world was then clothed in vivid verdure. Honeysuckles and wild grapevines made the woods fragrant. The gentian, which jealously closes its blue-fringed cup from the human eye, grew close to the lakes. Captive though the Frenchmen were, they could not help enjoying the evening camp-fire with its weird flickerings against the dark of savage forests, the heat-lightning which heralded or followed storms, the waters, clear, as if filtered through icebergs, dashing in foam over mossy rocks.

They met during the buffalo hunt, and it was about this time that some "spirits," or white men, were heard of, coming from Lake Superior. These proved to be the great ranger Greysolon du Lhut and four other Frenchmen.

This man, cousin to Tonty, passed nearly his whole life in the woods, going from Indian town to Indian town, or planting outposts of his own in the wilderness. Occasionally he went to France, and the king's magnificence at Versailles was endured by him until he could gain some desired point from the colonial minister and hurry back. The government relied on him to keep lawless coureurs de bois within bounds, and he traded with nearly all the western tribes. When Greysolon du Lhut appeared, the Sioux treated their prisoners with deference; and from that time Hennepin, Du Gay, and Ako went where they pleased.

They seemed to have had no thought of returning to Fort Crèvecoeur. In those days when each man took his individual life in his hands and guarded it in ways which seemed best to him, it was often expedient to change one's plan of action. About the time that Tonty was obliged to abandon Fort Crèvecoeur, Hennepin and his companions set off eastward with Greysolon du Lhut's party. Hennepin sailed for France as soon as he could and wrote a book about his adventures. It was one of La Salle's misfortunes that this friar should finally even lay claim to discovering the mouth of the Mississippi, adding the glory of that to these real adventures on its upper waters.

The first of March, La Salle, with a number of the men he had gathered, started from Fort Miamis to the Illinois country. The prairies were one dazzling expanse of snow, and as the party slid along on the broad, flat snowshoes to which their feet were strapped, some of them were so blinded that the pain in their eyes became unendurable. These were obliged to camp in the edge of some woods, while the rest went on.

La Salle himself was sitting in darkness while the spring sun struck a million sparkles from a world yet locked in winter. The wind chilled his back, and he spread his hands to the camp blaze. In the torment of snow-blindness he wondered whether Tonty was treading these white wastes, seeking him, or lying dead of Indian wounds under the snow crust. The talk of the other snow-blinded men, sitting about or stretched with their feet to the fire, was lost on his ear. Yet his one faithful servant, who went with him on all his journeys, could not see anything but calm fortitude on his face as he lifted it at the approach of snowshoes.

"I cannot see you, Hunaut," said La Salle. "Did you find some pine leaves?"

"I found some, monsieur."

"Steep them as soon as you can for the men's eyes."

"I wish to tell you, monsieur," the man said as he went about his task with a snow-filled kettle, "that I found also a party of Fox Indians from Green Bay, and they gave me news of Monsieur de Tonty."

Hunaut looked at the long, pale face of his master and saw the under lip tremble and twitch.

"You know I am much bound to Monsieur de Tonty. Is he alive?"

"He is alive, monsieur. He has been obliged to pass the winter at Green Bay. Father Hennepin has also passed through that country on his way to Montreal."