France and England in North America Part 8

It was a desolate and lonely scene,--the river gliding dark and cold between its banks of rushes; the empty lodges, covered with crusted snow; the vast white meadows; the distant cliffs, bearded with shining icicles; and the hills wrapped in forests, which glittered from afar with the icy incrustations that cased each frozen twig. Yet there was life in the savage landscape. The men saw buffalo wading in the snow, and they killed one of them. More than this: they discovered the tracks of moccasons. They cut rushes by the edge of the river, piled them on the bank, and set them on fire, that the smoke might attract the eyes of savages roaming near.

On the following day, while the hunters were smoking the meat of the buffalo, La Salle went out to reconnoitre, and presently met three Indians, one of whom proved to be Cha.s.sagoac, the princ.i.p.al chief of the Illinois. [Footnote: The same whom Hennepin calls Cha.s.sagoua.s.se. He was brother of the chief, Nicanope, who, in his absence, had feasted the French on the day after the nocturnal council with Monso. Cha.s.sagoac was afterwards baptized by Membre or Ribourde, but soon relapsed into the superst.i.tions of his people, and died, as the former tells us, "doubly a child of perdition." See Le Clercq, ii. 181.] La Salle brought them to his bivouac, feasted them, gave them a red blanket, a kettle, and some knives and hatchets, made friends with them, promised to restrain the Iroquois from attacking them, told them that he was on his way to the settlements to bring arms and ammunition to defend them against their enemies, and, as the result of these advances, gained from the chief a promise that he would send provisions to Tonty's party at Fort Crevecoeur.

After several days spent at the deserted town, La Salle prepared to resume his journey. Before his departure, his attention was attracted to the remarkable cliff of yellow sandstone, now called Starved Rock, a mile or more above the village,--a natural fortress, which a score of resolute white men might make good against a host of savages; and he soon afterwards sent Tonty an order to examine it, and make it his stronghold in case of need. [Footnote: Tonty, _Memoire_, MS. The order was sent by two Frenchmen whom La Salle met on Lake Michigan.]

On the fifteenth, the party set out again, carried their canoes along the bank of the river as far as the rapids above Ottawa; then launched them and pushed their way upward, battling with the floating ice, which, loosened by a warm rain, drove down the swollen current in sheets. On the eighteenth, they reached a point some miles below the site of Joliet, and here found the river once more completely closed. Despairing of farther progress by water, they hid their canoes on an island, and struck across the country for Lake Michigan. Each, besides his gun, carried a knife and a hatchet at his belt, a blanket strapped at his back, and a piece of dressed hide to make or mend his moccasons. A store of powder and lead, and a kettle, completed the outfit of the party. [Footnote: Hennepin (1683), 173.]

It was the worst of all seasons for such a journey. The nights were cold, but the sun was warm at noon, and the half-thawed prairie was one vast tract of mud, water, and discolored, half-liquid snow. On the twenty- second, they crossed marshes and inundated meadows, wading to the knee, till at noon they were stopped by a river, perhaps the Calumet. They made a raft of hard wood timber, for there was no other, and shoved themselves across. On the next day, they could see Lake Michigan, dimly glimmering beyond the waste of woods; and, after crossing three swollen streams, they reached it at evening. On the twenty-fourth, they followed its sh.o.r.e, till, at nightfall, they arrived at the fort, which they had built in the autumn at the mouth of the St. Joseph. Here La Salle found Chapelle and Leblanc, the two men whom he had sent from hence to Michillimackinac, in search of the "Griffin." [Footnote: _Declaration de Moyse Hillaret_, MS.

_Relation des Decouvertes_, MS.] They reported that they had made the circuit of the lake, and had neither seen her nor heard tidings of her.

a.s.sured of her fate, he ordered them to rejoin Tonty at Fort Crevecoeur; while he pushed onward with his party through the unknown wild of Southern Michigan.

They were detained till noon of the twenty-fifth, in making a raft to cross the St. Joseph. Then they resumed their march; and as they forced their way through the brambly thickets, their clothes were torn, and their faces so covered with blood, that, says the journal, they could hardly know each other. Game was very scarce, and they grew faint with hunger. In two or three days they reached a happier region. They shot deer, bears, and turkeys in the forest, and fared sumptuously. But the reports of their guns fell on hostile ears. This was a debatable ground, infested with war- parties of several adverse tribes, and none could venture here without risk of life. On the evening of the twenty-eighth, as they lay around their fire under the shelter of a forest by the border of a prairie, the man on guard shouted an alarm. They sprang to their feet; and each, gun in hand, took his stand behind a tree, while yells and howlings filled the surrounding darkness. A band of Indians were upon them; but, seeing them prepared, the cowardly a.s.sailants did not wait to exchange a shot.

They crossed great meadows, overgrown with rank gra.s.s, and set it on fire to hide the traces of their pa.s.sage. La Salle bethought him of a device to keep their skulking foes at a distance. On the trunks of trees from which he had stripped the bark, he drew with charcoal the marks of an Iroquois war-party, with the usual signs for prisoners, and for scalps, hoping to delude his pursuers with the belief that he and his men were a band of these dreaded warriors.

Thus, over snowy prairies and half-frozen marshes; wading sometimes to their waists in mud, water, and bulrushes, they urged their way through the spongy, saturated wilderness. During three successive days they were aware that a party of savages was d.o.g.g.i.ng their tracks. They dared, not make a fire at night, lest the light should betray them; but, hanging their wet clothes on the trees, they rolled themselves in their blankets, and slept together among piles of spruce and pine boughs. But the night of the second of April was excessively cold. Their clothes were hard frozen, and they were forced to kindle a fire to thaw and dry them. Scarcely had the light begun to glimmer through the gloom of evening, than it was greeted from the distance by mingled yells; and a troop of Mascoutin warriors rushed towards them. They were stopped by a deep stream, a hundred paces from the bivouac of the French, and La Salle went forward to meet them. No sooner did they see him, and learn that he was a Frenchman, than they cried that they were friends and brothers, who had mistaken him and his men for Iroquois; and, abandoning their hostile purpose, they peacefully withdrew. Thus his device to avert danger had well-nigh proved the destruction of the whole party.

Two days after this adventure, two of the men fell ill from fatigue, and exposure, and sustained themselves with difficulty till they reached the banks of a river, probably the Huron. Here, while the sick men rested, their companions made a canoe. There were no birch-trees; and they were forced to use elm bark, which at that early season would not slip freely from the wood until they loosened it with hot water. Their canoe being made, they embarked in it, and for a time floated prosperously down the stream, when, at length the way was barred by a matted barricade of trees fallen across the water. The sick men could now walk again; and, pushing eastward through the forest, the party soon reached the banks of the Detroit.

La Salle directed two of the men to make a canoe, and go to Michillimackinac, the nearest harborage. With the remaining two, he crossed the Detroit on a raft, and, striking a direct line across the country, reached Lake Erie, not far from Point Pelee. Snow, sleet, and rain pelted them with little intermission; and when, after a walk of about thirty miles, they gained the lake, the Mohegan and one of the Frenchmen were attacked with fever and spitting of blood. Only one man now remained in health. With his aid, La Salle made another canoe, and, embarking the invalids, pushed for Niagara. It was Easter Monday, when they landed at a cabin of logs above the cataract, probably on the spot where the "Griffin"

was built. Here several of La Salle's men had been left the year before, and here they still remained. They told him woful news. Not only had he lost the "Griffin," and her lading of ten thousand crowns in value, but a ship from France, freighted with his goods, valued at more than twenty-two thousand livres, had been totally wrecked at the mouth of the St.

Lawrence; and of twenty hired men on their way from Europe to join him, some had been detained by his enemy, the Intendant d.u.c.h.esneau, while all but four of the remainder, being told that he was dead, had found means to return home.

His three followers were all unfit for travel: he alone retained his strength and spirit. Taking with him three fresh men at Niagara, he resumed his journey, and on the sixth of May descried, looming through floods of rain, the familiar sh.o.r.es of his seigniory and the bastioned walls of Fort Frontenac. During sixty-five days he had toiled almost incessantly, travelling, by the course he took, about a thousand miles through a country beset with every form of peril and obstruction; "the most arduous journey," says the chronicler, "ever made by Frenchmen in America." Such was Cavelier de la Salle. In him, an unconquerable mind held at its service a frame of iron, and tasked it to the utmost of its endurance. The pioneer of western pioneers was no rude son of toil, but a man of thought, trained amid arts and letters. [Footnote: A Rocky Mountain trapper, being complimented on the hardihood of himself and his companions, once said to the writer, "That's so; but a gentleman of the right sort will stand hardship better than anybody else." The history of Arctic and African travel, and the military records of all time, are a standing evidence that a trained and developed mind is not the enemy, but the active and powerful ally, of const.i.tutional hardihood. The culture that enervates instead of strengthening is always a false or a partial one.]

He had reached his goal; but for him there was neither rest nor peace. Man and nature seemed in arms against him. His agents had plundered him; his creditors had seized his property; and several of his canoes, richly laden, had been lost in the rapids of the St. Lawrence. [Footnote: Zen.o.be Membre in Le Clercq, ii. 202.] He hastened to Montreal, where his sudden advent caused great astonishment; and where, despite his crippled resources and damaged credit, he succeeded, within a week, in gaining the supplies which he required, and the needful succors for the forlorn band on the Illinois. He had returned to Fort Frontenac, and was on the point of embarking for their relief, when a blow fell upon him more disheartening than any that had preceded. On the twenty-second of July, two _voyageurs_, Messier and Laurent, came to him with a letter from Tonty; who wrote that soon after La Salle's departure, nearly all the men had deserted, after destroying Fort Crevecoeur, plundering the magazine, and throwing into the river all the arms, goods, and stores which they could not carry off. The messengers who brought this letter were speedily followed by two of the _habitans_ of Fort Frontenac, who had been trading on the lakes, and who, with a fidelity which the unhappy La Salle rarely knew how to inspire, had travelled day and night to bring him their tidings. They reported that they had met the deserters, and that having been reinforced by recruits gained at Michillimackinac and Niagara, they now numbered twenty men. [Footnote: When La Salle was at Niagara, in April, he had ordered Dautray, the best of the men who had accompanied him from the Illinois, to return thither as soon as he was able. Four men from Niagara were to go with him, and he was to rejoin Tonty with such supplies as that post could furnish. Dautray set out accordingly, but was met on the lakes by the deserters, who told him that Tonty was dead, and seduced his men.--_Relation des Decouvertes_, MS. Dautray himself seems to have remained true; at least he was in La Salle's service immediately after, and was one of his most trusted followers. He was of good birth, being the son of Jean Bourdon, a conspicuous personage in the early period of the colony, and his name appears on official records as Jean Bourdon, Sieur d'Autray.] They had destroyed the fort on the St. Joseph, seized a quant.i.ty of furs belonging to La Salle at Michillimackinac, and plundered the magazine at Niagara. Here they had separated, eight of them coasting the south side of Lake Ontario to find harborage at Albany, a common refuge at that time of this cla.s.s of scoundrels; while the remaining twelve, in three canoes, made for Fort Frontenac along the north sh.o.r.e, intending to kill La Salle as the surest means of escaping punishment.

He lost no time in lamentation. Of the few men at his command, he chose nine of the trustiest, embarked with them in canoes, and went to meet the marauders. After pa.s.sing the Bay of Quinte, he took his station with five of his party at a point of land suited to his purpose, and detached the remaining four to keep watch. In the morning two canoes were discovered, approaching without suspicion, one of them far in advance of the other. As the foremost drew near, La Salle's canoe darted out from under the leafy sh.o.r.e; two of the men handling the paddles, while he with the remaining two levelled their guns at the deserters, and called on them to surrender.

Astonished and dismayed, they yielded at once; while two more who were in the second canoe hastened to follow their example. La Salle now returned to the fort with his prisoners, placed them in custody, and again set forth. He met the third canoe upon the lake at about six o'clock in the evening. His men vainly plied their paddles in pursuit. The mutineers reached the sh.o.r.e, took post among rocks and trees, levelled their guns, and showed fight. Four of La Salle's men made a circuit to gain their rear and dislodge them; on which they stole back to their canoe, and tried to escape in the darkness. They were pursued, and summoned to yield; but they replied by aiming their guns at their pursuers, who instantly gave them a volley, killed two of them, and captured the remaining three. Like their companions, they were placed in custody at the fort to await the arrival of Count Frontenac. [Footnote: The story of La Salle's journey from Fort Crevecoeur to Fort Frontenac, with his subsequent encounter with the mutineers, is given in great detail in the unpublished _Relation des Decouvertes_. This and other portions of it are compiled, with little abridgment, from the letters of La Salle himself, some of which are still in existence. They give the particulars of each day with a cool and business-like simplicity, recounting facts without comment or the slightest attempt at rhetorical embellishment. This is the authority for the details of the journey: the general statement is confirmed by Membre, Hennepin, and Tonty. The _Memoire_ of Tonty, though too concise, is excellent authority, and must by no means be confounded with the _Relation de la Louisiane_, to which his name is falsely affixed.]

CHAPTER XVI.

1680.

INDIAN CONQUERORS.

THE ENTERPRISE RENEWED.--ATTEMPT TO RESCUE TONTY.--BUFFALO.-- A FRIGHTFUL DISCOVERY.--IROQUOIS FURY.--THE RUINED TOWN.--A NIGHT OF HORROR.--TRACES OF THE INVADERS.--NO NEWS OF TONTY.

And now La Salle's work must be begun afresh. He had staked all, and all had seemingly been lost. In stern relentless effort he had touched the limits of human endurance; and the harvest of his toils was disappointment, disaster, and impending ruin. The shattered fabric of his enterprise was prostrate in the dust. His friends desponded; his foes were blatant and exultant. Did he bend before the storm? No human eye could pierce the veiled depths of his reserved and haughty nature; but the surface was calm, and no sign betrayed a shaken resolve or an altered purpose. Where weaker men would have abandoned all in despairing apathy, he turned anew to his work with the same vigor and the same apparent confidence as if borne on the full tide of success.

His best hope was in Tonty. Could that brave and true-hearted officer, and the three or four faithful men who had remained with him, make good their foothold on the Illinois, and save from destruction the vessel on the stocks, and the forge and tools so laboriously carried thither,--then, indeed, a basis was left on which the ruined enterprise might be built up once more. There was no time to lose. Tonty must be succored soon, or succor would come too late. La Salle had already provided the necessary material, and a few days sufficed to complete his preparations. On the tenth of August, he embarked again for the Illinois. With him went his lieutenant, La Forest, who held of him in fief an island, then called Belle Isle, opposite Fort Frontenac. [Footnote: _Robert Cavelier, Sr. de la Salle, a Francois Daupin, Sr. de la Forest,_ 10 _Juin, 1679,_ MS.] A surgeon, ship-carpenters, joiners, masons, soldiers, _voyageurs_, and laborers completed his company, twenty-five men in all, with every thing needful for the outfit of the vessel.

His route, though difficult, was not so long as that which he had followed the year before. He ascended the River Humber; crossed to Lake Simcoe, and thence descended the Severn to the Georgian Bay of Lake Huron; followed its eastern sh.o.r.e, coasted the Manitoulin Islands, and at length reached Michillimackinac. Here, as usual, all was hostile; and he had great difficulty in inducing the Indians, who had been excited against him, to sell him provisions. Anxious to reach his destination, he pushed forward with twelve men, leaving La Forest to bring on the rest. On the fourth of November, [Footnote: This date is from the _Relation_. Membre says the twenty-eighth; but he is wrong, by his own showing, as he says that the party reached the Illinois village on the first of December,--an impossibility.] he reached the ruined fort at the mouth of the St. Joseph, and left five of his party, with the heavy stores, to wait till La Forest should come up, while he himself hastened forward with six Frenchmen and an Indian. A deep anxiety possessed him. For some time past, rumors had been abroad that the Iroquois were preparing to invade the country of the Illinois, bent on expelling or destroying them. Here was a new disaster, which, if realized, might involve him and his enterprise in irretrievable wreck.

He ascended the St. Joseph, crossed the portage to the Kankakee, and followed its course downward till it joined the northern branch of the Illinois. He had heard nothing of Tonty on the way, and neither here nor elsewhere could he discover the smallest sign of the pa.s.sage of white men.

His friend, therefore, if alive, was probably still at his post; and he pursued his course with a mind lightened, in some small measure, of its load of anxiety.

When last he had pa.s.sed here, all was solitude; but how the scene was changed. The boundless waste was thronged with life. He beheld that wondrous spectacle, still to be seen at times on the plains of the remotest West, and the memory of which can quicken the pulse and stir the blood after the lapse of years. Far and near, the prairie was alive with buffalo; now like black specks dotting the distant swells; now trampling by in ponderous columns, or filing in long lines, morning, noon, and night, to drink at the river,--wading, plunging, and snorting in the water; climbing the muddy sh.o.r.es, and staring with wild eyes at the pa.s.sing canoes. It was an opportunity not to be lost. The party landed, and encamped for a hunt. Sometimes they hid under the shelving bank, and shot them as they came to drink; sometimes, flat on their faces, they dragged themselves through the long dead gra.s.s, till the savage bulls, guardians of the herd, ceased their grazing, raised their huge heads, and glared through tangled hair at the dangerous intruders; their horns splintered and their grim front scarred with battles, while their s.h.a.ggy mane, like a gigantic lion, well-nigh swept the ground. [Footnote: I have a very vivid recollection of the appearance of an old buffalo bull under such circ.u.mstances. When I was within a hundred yards of him, he came towards me at a sharp trot as if to make a charge; but, as I remained motionless, he stopped thirty paces off and stared fixedly for a long time. At length, he slowly turned, and, in doing so, received a shot behind the shoulder, which killed him. It is useless to fire at the forehead of a buffalo bull, at least with an ordinary rifle, as the bullet flattens against his skull. A shot at close quarters, just above the nose, would probably turn him in a charge. The usual modes of hunting buffalo on foot are those mentioned above. They are commonly successful; but at times the animals are excessively shy and wary, while at other times they are stupid beyond measure, and can be easily approached and killed. The hunter must remain perfectly motionless after firing, as the wounded animal is apt to make a rush at him if he moves. The most agreeable mode of hunting buffalo is, however, on horseback, running alongside of them, and shooting them behind the shoulder with a pistol or a short gun. A bow and arrow are better for those who know how to use them; but white men very rarely have the skill. I have seen, on different occasions, several hundred buffalo killed with arrows, by Indians on horseback. This n.o.ble game, with the tribes who live on it, will soon disappear from the earth.] The hunt was successful. In three days, the hunters killed twelve buffalo, besides deer, geese, and swans. They cut the meat into thin flakes, and dried it in the sun, or in the smoke of their fires. The men were in high spirits; delighting in the sport, and rejoicing in the prospect of relieving Tonty and his hungry followers with a bounteous supply.

They embarked again, and soon approached the great town of the Illinois.

The buffalo were far behind; and once more the canoes glided on their way through a voiceless solitude. No hunters were seen; no saluting whoop greeted their ears. They pa.s.sed the cliff afterwards called the Rock of St. Louis, where La Salle had ordered Tonty to build his stronghold; but as he scanned its lofty top, he saw no palisades, no cabins, no sign of human hand, and still its primeval crest of forests overhung the gliding river. Now the meadow opened before them where the great town had stood.

They gazed, astonished and confounded: all was desolation. The town had vanished, and the meadow was black with fire. They plied their paddles, hastened to the spot, landed; and, as they looked around, their cheeks grew white, and the blood was frozen in their veins.

Before them lay a plain once swarming with wild human life, and covered with Indian dwellings; now a waste of devastation and death, strewn with heaps of ashes, and bristling with the charred poles and stakes which had formed the framework of the lodges. At the points of most of them were stuck human skulls, half picked by birds of prey. [Footnote: "Il ne restoit que quelques bouts de perches brulees qui montroient quelle avoit ete l'etendue du village, et sur la plupart desquelles il y avait des tetes de morts plantees et mangoes des corbeaux."--_Relation des Decouvertes du Sr. de la Salle_, MS.] Near at hand was the burial ground of the village. The travellers sickened with horror as they entered its revolting precincts. Wolves in mult.i.tudes fled at their approach; while clouds of crows or buzzards, rising from the hideous repast, wheeled above their heads, or settled on the naked branches of the neighboring forest.

Every grave had been rifled, and the bodies flung down from the scaffolds where, after the Illinois custom, many of them had been placed. The field was strewn with broken bones and torn and mangled corpses. A hyena warfare had been waged against the dead. La Salle knew the handiwork of the Iroquois. The threatened blow had fallen, and the wolfish hordes of the five cantons had fleshed their rabid fangs in a new victim. [Footnote: "Beaucoup de carca.s.ses a demi rongees par les loups, les sepulchres demolis, les os tires de leurs fosses et epars par la campagne; ... enfin les loups et les corbeaux augmentoient par leurs hurlemens et par leurs cris l'horreur de ce spectacle."--_Ibid_.

The above may seem exaggerated, but it accords perfectly with what is well established concerning the ferocious character of the Iroquois, and the nature of their warfare. Many other tribes have frequently made war upon the dead. I have myself known an instance in which five corpses of Sioux Indians, placed in trees, after the practice of the western bands of that people, were thrown down and kicked into fragments by a war party of the Crows, who then held the muzzles of their guns against the skulls and blew them to pieces. This happened near the head of the Platte, in the summer of 1846. Yet the Crows are much less ferocious than were the Iroquois in La Salle's time.]

Not far distant, the conquerors had made a rude fort of trunks, boughs, and roots of trees laid together to form a circular enclosure; and this, too, was garnished with, skulls, stuck on the broken branches, and protruding sticks. The _caches_, or subterranean storehouses of the villagers had been broken open, and the contents scattered. The cornfields were laid waste, and much of the corn thrown into heaps and half burned.

As La Salle surveyed this scene of havoc, one thought engrossed him: where were Tonty and his men? He searched the Iroquois fort; there were abundant traces of its savage occupants, but none whatever of the presence of white men. He examined the skulls; but the hair, portions of which clung to nearly all of them, was in every case that of an Indian. Evening came on before he had finished the search. The sun set, and the wilderness sank to its savage rest. Night and silence brooded over the waste, where, far as the raven could wing his flight, stretched the dark domain of solitude and horror.

Yet there was no silence at the spot, where, crouched around their camp- fire, La Salle and his companions kept their vigil. The howlings of the wolves filled the frosty air with a fierce and dreary dissonance. More deadly foes were not far off, for before nightfall they had seen fresh Indian tracks. The cold, however, forced them to make a fire; and while some tried to rest around it, the others stood on the watch. La Salle could not sleep. Anxiety, anguish, fears for his friend, doubts as to what course he should pursue, racked his firm mind with a painful indecision, and lent redoubled gloom to the terrors that encompa.s.sed him. [Footnote: _Relation des Decouvertes_, MS.]

During the afternoon, he had made a discovery which offered, as he thought, a possible clew to the fate of Tonty, and those with him. In one of the Illinois cornfields, near the river, were planted six posts painted red, on each of which was drawn in black a figure of a man with eyes bandaged. La Salle supposed them to represent six Frenchmen, prisoners in the hands of the Iroquois; and he resolved to push forward at all hazards, in the hope of learning more. When daylight at length returned, he told his followers that it was his purpose to descend the river, and directed three of them to await his return near the ruined village. They were to hide themselves on an island, conceal their fire at night, make no smoke by day, fire no guns, and keep a close watch. Should the rest of the party arrive, they, too, were to wait with similar precautions. The baggage was placed in a hollow of the rocks, at a place difficult of access; and, these arrangements made, La Salle set out on his perilous journey with the four remaining men, Dautray, Hunaut, You, and the Indian. Each was armed with two guns, a pistol, and a sword; and a number of hatchets and other goods were placed in the canoe, as presents for Indians whom they might meet.

Several leagues below the village they found, on their right hand close to the river, a sort of island made inaccessible by the marshes and water which surrounded it. Here the flying Illinois had sought refuge with their women and children, and the place was full of their deserted huts. On the left bank, exactly opposite, was an abandoned camp of the Iroquois. On the level meadow stood a hundred and thirteen huts, and on the forest trees which covered the hills behind were carved the totems, or insignia, of the chiefs, together with marks to show the number of followers which each had led to the war. La Salle counted five hundred and eighty-two warriors. He found marks, too, for the Illinois killed or captured, but none to indicate that any of the Frenchmen had shared their fate.

As they descended the river, they pa.s.sed, on the same day, six abandoned camps of the Illinois, and opposite to each was a camp of the invaders.

The former, it was clear, had retreated in a body; while the Iroquois had followed their march, day by day, along the other bank. La Salle and his men pushed rapidly onward, pa.s.sed Peoria Lake, and soon reached Fort Crevecoeur, which they found, as they expected, demolished by the deserters. The vessel on the stocks was still left entire, though the Iroquois had found means to draw out the iron nails and spikes. On one of the planks were written the words: "_Nous sommes tous sauvages: ce_ 19-- 1680;" the work, no doubt, of the knaves who had pillaged and destroyed the fort.

La Salle and his companions hastened on, and during the following day pa.s.sed four opposing camps of the savage armies. The silence of death now reigned along the deserted river, whose lonely borders, wrapped deep in forests, seemed lifeless as the grave. As they drew near the mouth of the stream, they saw a meadow on their right, and, on its farthest verge, several human figures, erect yet motionless. They landed, and cautiously examined the place. The long gra.s.s was trampled down, and all around were strewn the relics of the hideous orgies which formed the ordinary sequel of an Iroquois victory. The figures they had seen were the half-consumed bodies of women, still bound to the stakes where they had been tortured.

Other sights there were, too revolting for record. [Footnote: "On ne scauroit exprimer la rage de ces furieux ni les tourmens qu'ils avoient fait souffrir aux miserables Tamaroa (_a tribe of the Illinois_). Il y en avoit encore dans des chaudieres qu'ils avoient laissees pleines sur les feux, qui depuis s'etoient eteints," etc., etc.--_Relation des Decouvertes_, MS.] All the remains were those of women and children. The men, it seemed, had fled, and left them to their fate.

Here, again, La Salle sought long and anxiously, without finding the smallest sign that could indicate the presence of Frenchmen. Once more descending the river, they soon reached its mouth. Before them, a broad eddying current rolled swiftly on its way; and La Salle beheld the Mississippi, the object of his day-dreams, the destined avenue of his ambition and his hopes. It was no time for reflections. The moment was too engrossing, too heavily charged with anxieties and cares. From a rock on the sh.o.r.e, he saw a tree stretched forward above the stream; and stripping off its bark to make it more conspicuous, he hung upon it a board, on which he had drawn the figures of himself and his men, seated in their canoe, and bearing a pipe of peace. To this he tied a letter for Tonty, informing him that he had returned up the river to the ruined village.

His four men had behaved admirably throughout, and they now offered to continue the journey, if he saw fit, and follow him to the sea; but he thought it useless to go farther, and was unwilling to abandon the three men whom he had ordered to await his return. Accordingly they retraced their course, and, paddling at times both day and night, urged their canoe so swiftly, that they reached the village in the incredibly short s.p.a.ce of four days. [Footnote: The distance is about two hundred and fifty miles.

The _Relation des Decouvertes_ says that they left the village on the second of December, and returned to it on the eleventh, having left the mouth of the river on the seventh. Very probably, there is an error of date. In other particulars, this narrative is sustained by those of Tonty.]

The sky was clear; and, as night came on, the travellers saw a prodigious comet blazing above this scene of desolation. On that night, it was chilling, with a superst.i.tious awe, the hamlets of New England and the gilded chambers of Versailles; but it is characteristic of La Salle, that, beset as he was with perils, and surrounded with ghastly images of death, he coolly notes down the phenomenon,--not as a portentous messenger of war and woe, but rather as an object of scientific curiosity. [Footnote: This was the "Great Comet of 1680.". Dr. B. A. Gould writes me: "It appeared in December, 1680, and was visible until the latter part of February, 1681, being especially brilliant in January." It was said to be the largest ever seen. By observations upon it, Newton demonstrated the regular revolutions of comets around the sun. "No comet," it is said, "has threatened the earth with a nearer approach than that of 1680."--_Winthrop on Comets, Lecture II_. p. 44. Increase Mather, in his _Discourse concerning Comets_, printed at Boston in 1683, says of this one: "Its appearance was very terrible, the Blaze ascended above 60 Degrees almost to its Zenith."

Mather thought it fraught with terrific portent to the nations of the earth.]

He found his three men safely ensconced upon their island, where they were anxiously looking for his return. After collecting a store of half-burnt corn from the ravaged granaries of the Illinois, the whole party began to ascend the river, and, on the sixth of January, reached the junction of the Kankakee with the northern branch. On their way downward, they had descended the former stream. They now chose the latter, and soon discovered, by the margin of the water, a rude cabin of bark. La Salle landed, and examined the spot, when an object met his eye which cheered him with a bright gleam of hope. It was but a piece of wood, but the wood had been cut with a saw. Tonty and his party, then, had pa.s.sed this way, escaping from the carnage behind them. Unhappily, they had left no token of their pa.s.sage at the fork of the two streams; and thus La Salle, on his voyage downward, had believed them to be still on the river below.

With rekindled hope, the travellers pursued their journey, leaving their canoes, and making their way overland towards the fort on the St. Joseph.

Snow fell in profusion, till the earth was deeply buried. So light and dry was it, that to walk on snow-shoes was impossible; and La Salle, after his custom, took the lead, to break the path and cheer on his followers.

Despite his tall stature, he often waded through drifts to the waist, while the men toiled on behind; the snow, shaken from the burdened twigs, showering them as they pa.s.sed. After excessive fatigue, they reached their goal, and found shelter and safety within the walls of Fort Miami. Here was the party left in charge of La Forest; but, to his surprise and grief, La Salle heard no tidings of Tonty. He found some amends for the disappointment in the fidelity and zeal of La Forest's men, who had restored the fort, cleared ground for planting, and even sawed the planks and timber for a new vessel on the lake.

And now, while La Salle rests at Fort Miami, let us trace the adventures which befell Tonty and his followers, after their chief's departure from Fort Crevecoeur.

CHAPTER XVII.

1680.

TONTY AND THE IROQUOIS.