Heroes of the Middle West Part 4

[Ill.u.s.tration: Totem of the Hurons.]

The Hurons then living at St. Ignace, whom Father Marquette had led there from his earlier mission, afterwards wandered to Detroit and Sandusky, the priests having decided to abandon St. Ignace and burn the chapel. In our own day we hear of their descendants as settled in the Indian Territory, the smallest but wealthiest band of all transplanted Indians.

Having entered the lake region with impressive ceremonies, which he well knew how to employ before ignorant men and savages, La Salle threw aside his splendor, and, with his lieutenant, put on the buckskins for marching and canoe journeying into the wilderness. Some of the men he had sent up the lakes with goods nearly a year before had collected a large store of furs, worth much money; and these he determined to send back to Canada on the Griffin, to satisfy his creditors and to give him means for carrying on his plans. He had meant, after sending Tonty on to the Illinois country, to return to Canada and settle his affairs.

But it became necessary, as soon as he landed at St. Ignace, to divide his party and send Tonty with some of the men to Sault Ste. Marie after plunderers who had made off with his goods. The others would doubtless desert if left any length of time without a leader. It was a risk also to send his ship back to the colony without standing guard over its safety himself. But he greatly needed the credit which its load of furs would give him. So he determined to send it manned as it was, with orders to return to the head of Lake Michigan as soon as the cargo was safely landed; while he voyaged down the west side of the lake, and Tonty, returning from the Sault, came by the east sh.o.r.e. The reunited party would then have the Griffin as a kind of floating fort or refuge, and by means of it keep easily in communication with the settlements.

La Salle wanted to build a chain of forts from Niagara to the mouth of the Mississippi, when that could be reached. Around each of these, and protected by them, he foresaw settlements of French and Indians, and a vast trade in furs and the products of the undeveloped west. Thus France would acquire a province many times its own size. The undertaking was greater than conquering a kingdom. n.o.body else divined at that time the wonderful promise of the west as La Salle pictured it. Little attention had been paid to the discoveries of Marquette and Jolliet.

France would have got no benefit from them had not La Salle so soon followed on the track of missionary and trader, verified what had been done, and pushed on.

He had seen Jolliet twice. The first time they met near Niagara, when both were exploring; the second time, Jolliet is said to have stopped with his maps and papers before they were lost at Fort Frontenac, on his return from his Mississippi voyage. La Salle, then master of Fort Frontenac, must have examined these charts and journals with interest.

It does not appear that the two men were ever very friendly. Jolliet was too easily satisfied to please La Salle; he had not the ability to spread France's dominion over the whole western wilderness, and that was what La Salle was planning to do before Marquette and Jolliet set out for the Mississippi.

St. Ignace became once more the starting point of an important expedition, though La Salle, before sending the Griffin back, sailed in her as far as the Bay of Puans, where many of his furs were collected.

He parted with this good ship in September. She pointed her prow eastward, and he turned south with fourteen men in four canoes, carrying tools, arms, goods, and even a blacksmith's forge.

Through storm, and famine, and peril with Indians they labored down the lake, and did not reach the place where they were to meet Tonty until the first of November. La Salle had the three Recollet friars with him.

Though one was a man sixty-four years old, he bore, with his companions, every hardship patiently and cheerfully. The story of priests who helped to open the wilderness and who carried religion to savages is a beautiful chapter of our national life.

Tonty was not at the place where they were to meet him. This was the mouth of the St. Joseph River, which La Salle named the Miamis. The men did not want to wait, for they were afraid of starving if they reached the Illinois country after the Indians had scattered to winter hunting grounds. But La Salle would not go on until Tonty appeared. He put the men to work building a timber stockade, which he called Fort Miamis; thus beginning in the face of discouragement his plan of creating a line of fortifications.

Tonty, delayed by lack of provisions and the need of hunting, reached Fort Miamis with his men in twenty days. But the Griffin did not come at all. More than time enough had pa.s.sed for her to reach Fort Niagara, unload her cargo, and return. La Salle watched the lake constantly for her sails. He began to be heavy-hearted for her, but he dared wait no longer; so, sending two men back to meet and guide her to this new post, he moved on.

Eight canoes carried his party of thirty-three people. They ascended the St. Joseph River to find a portage to the head waters of the Illinois.

This brought them within the present state of Indiana; and when they had reached that curve of the river where South Bend now stands, they left St. Joseph to grope for the Theakiki, or Kankakee, a branch called by some Indians the Illinois itself.

La Salle became separated from the party on this portage, eagerly and fearlessly scouring the woods for the river's beginning. Tonty camped and waited for him, fired guns, called, and searched; but he was gone all night and until the next afternoon. The stars were blotted overhead, for a powder of snow thickened the air, weirdly illuminating naked trees in the darkness, but shutting in his vision. It was past midnight when he came in this blind circle once more to the banks of the St. Joseph, and saw a fire glinting through dense bushes.

"Now I have reached camp," thought La Salle, and he fired his gun to let his people know he was approaching. Echoes rolled through the woods.

Without waiting for a shot in reply he hurried to the fire. No person was near it. The descending snow hissed, caught in the flames. Here was a home hearth prepared in the wilderness, and no welcome to it but silence. La Salle called out in every Indian language he knew. Dead branches grated, and the stream rustled betwixt its edges of ice. A heap of dry gra.s.s was gathered for a bed under a tree by the fire, and its elastic top showed the hollow where a man had lain. La Salle put some more wood on the fire, piled a barricade of brush around the bed, and lay down in a place left warm by some strolling Indian whom his gun had frightened away. He slept until morning. In the afternoon he found his own camp.

From the first thread of the Kankakee oozing out of swamps to the Indian town on the Illinois River where Marquette had done his last missionary work, was a long canoe journey. It has been said the rivers of the New World made its rapid settlement possible; for they were open highways, even in the dead of winter guiding the explorer by their frozen courses.

The Illinois tribe had scattered to their hunting, and the lodges stood empty. La Salle's men were famished for supplies, so he ventured to open the covered pits in which the Indians stored their corn. Nothing was more precious than this hidden grain; but he paid for what he took when he reached the Indians. This was not until after New Year's day. He had descended the river as far as that expansion now called Peoria Lake.

The Illinois, after their first panic at the appearance of strange white men, received La Salle's party kindly, fed all with their own fingers, and, as they had done with Jolliet and Marquette when those explorers pa.s.sed them on the Mississippi, tried to coax their guests to go no farther. They and other Indians who came to the winter camp told such tales of danger on that great river about which the French knew so little, that six of La Salle's men deserted in one night.

This caused him to move half a league beyond the Illinois camp, where, on the southern bank, he built a palisaded fort and called it Crevecoeur. He was by this time convinced that the Griffin was lost.

Whether she went down in a storm, or was scuttled and sunk by those to whom he intrusted her, nothing was ever heard of her again. The furs he had sent to pay his creditors never in any way reached port. If they escaped shipwreck, they were stolen by the men who escaped with them.

Nothing could bend La Salle's resolution. He meant in some way to explore the west through which the southern Mississippi ran. But the loss of the Griffin hurt him sorely. He could not go on without more supplies; and having no vessel to bring them, the fearful necessity was before him of returning on foot and by canoe to Fort Frontenac to bring them himself.

He began to build another ship on the Illinois River, and needed cables and rigging for her. This vessel being partly finished by the first of March, he left her and Fort Crevecoeur in Tonty's charge, and, taking four Frenchmen and a Mohegan hunter, set out on the long and terrible journey to Fort Frontenac.

The Italian commandant with the copper hand could number on its metal fingers the only men to be trusted in his garrison of fifteen. One Recollet, Father Louis Hennepin, had been sent with two companions by La Salle to explore the upper Mississippi. Father Ribourde and Father Membre remained. The young Sieur de Boisrondet might also be relied on, as well as a Parisian lad named etienne Renault, and their servant L'Esperance. As for the others, smiths, shipwrights, and soldiers were ready to mutiny any moment. They cared nothing about the discovery of the west. They were afraid of La Salle when he was with them; and, though it is said no man could help loving Tonty, these lawless fellows loved their own wills better.

The two men that La Salle had sent to look for the Griffin arrived at Fort Crevecoeur, bearing a message from him, having met him on the way. They had no news, but he wrote a letter and sent them on to Tonty.

He urged Tonty to take part of the garrison and go and fortify a great rock he had noticed opposite the Illinois town. Whatever La Salle wanted done Tonty was anxious to accomplish, though separating himself from Crevecoeur, even for a day, was a dangerous experiment. But he took some men and ascended the river to the rock. Straight-way smiths, shipwrights, and soldiers in Crevecoeur, seizing powder, lead, furs, and provisions, deserted and made their way back to Canada. Boisrondet, the friars, and L'Esperance hurried to tell Tonty; and thus Fort Crevecoeur and the partly finished ship had to be abandoned. Tonty dispatched four men to warn La Salle of the disaster. He could neither hold this position nor fortify the rock in the midst of jealous savages with two friars, one young officer, a lad, and one servant. He took the forge, and tools, and all that was left in Crevecoeur into the very heart of the Indian village and built a long lodge, shaped like the wigwams of the Illinois. This was the only way to put down their suspicion. Seeing that the Frenchmen had come to dwell among them, the Indians were pleased, and their women helped with poles and mats to build the lodge.

For by this time, so long did it take to cover distances in the wilderness, spring and summer were past, and the Illinois were dwelling in their great town, nearly opposite the rock which La Salle desired to have fortified. Tonty often gazed at it across the river, which flows southwestward there, with a ripple that does not break into actual rapids. The yellow sandstone height, rising like a square mountain out of the sh.o.r.e, was tufted with ferns and trees. No man could ascend it except at the southeast corner, and at that place a ladder or a rope was needed by the unskillful. It had a flat, gra.s.sy top shut in by trees, through which one could see the surrounding country as from a tower.

A ravine behind it was banked and floored with dazzling white sand, and walled at the farther side by a timbered cliff rising to a prairie.

With a score of men Tonty could have held this natural fortress against any attack. Buckets might be rigged from overhanging trees to draw up water from the river. Provisions and ammunition only were needed for a garrison. This is now called Starved Rock, and is nearly opposite the town of Utica. Some distance up the river is a longer ridge, yet known as Buffalo Rock, easy of ascent at one end, up which the savages are said to have chased buffaloes; and precipitous at the other, down which the frightened beasts plunged to death.

The tenth day of September a mellow autumn sun shone on maize fields where squaws labored, on lazy old braves sprawled around buffalo robes, gambling with cherry stones, and on peaceful lodges above which the blue smoke faintly wavered. It was so warm the fires were nearly out. Young warriors of the tribes were away on an expedition; but the populous Indian town swarmed with its thousands.

Father Ribourde and Father Membre had that morning withdrawn a league up the river to make what they called a retreat for prayer and meditation.

The other Frenchmen were divided between lodge and garden.

Near this living town was the town of the dead, a hamlet of scaffolds, where, wrapped in skins, above the reach of wolves, Illinois Indians of a past generation slept their winters and summers away. Crows flapped across them and settled on the corn, causing much ado among the papooses who were set to shout and rattle sticks for the protection of the crop.

Suddenly a man ran into camp, having just leaped from the canoe which brought him across the river. When he had talked an instant old braves bounded to their feet with furious cries, the tribes flocked out of lodges, and women and children caught the panic and came screeching.

"What is the matter?" exclaimed Tonty, unable to understand their rapid jargon. The Frenchmen drew together with the instinct of uniting in peril, and, led by old men, the Indian mob turned on them.

"What is it?" cried Tonty.

"The Iroquois are coming! The Iroquois are coming to eat us up! These Frenchmen have brought the Iroquois upon us!"

"Will you stand off!" Tonty warned them. And every brave in the town knew what they called the medicine hand in his right gauntlet, powerful and hard as a war club. They stood in awe of it as something more than human. He put his followers behind him. The Frenchmen crowded back to back, facing the savage crowd. Hampered by his imperfect knowledge of their language, he hearkened intently to the jangle of raging voices, his keen dark eyes sweeping from face to face. Tonty was a man of impressive presence, who inspired confidence even in Indians. They held back from slaying him and his people, but fiercely accused him. Young braves dragged from the French lodge the goods and forge saved from Fort Crevecoeur, and ran yelling to heave everything into the river.

"The Iroquois are your friends! The Iroquois are at peace with the French! But they are marching here to eat us up!"

"We know nothing about the Iroquois!" shouted Tonty. "If they are coming we will go out with you to fight them!"

Only half convinced, but panic-stricken from former encounters with a foe who always drove them off their land, they turned from threatening Tonty and ran to push out their canoes. Into these were put the women and children, with supplies, and all were paddled down river to an island, where guards could be set. The warriors then came back and prepared for fighting. They greased their bodies, painted their faces, made ready their weapons, and danced and howled to excite one another to courage. All night fires along sh.o.r.e, and leaping figures, were reflected in the dark river.

About dawn, scouts who had been sent to watch the Iroquois came running with news that the enemy were almost in sight across the prairie on the opposite side, slipping under cover of woods along a small branch of the Illinois River. They had guns, pistols, and swords, and carried bucklers of rawhide. The scouts declared that a Jesuit priest and La Salle himself led them.

The Frenchmen's lives seemed hardly a breath long. In the midst of maddened, screeching savages Tonty and his men once more stood back to back, and he pushed off knives with his copper hand.

"Do you want to kill yourselves?" he shouted. "If you kill us, the French governor will not leave a man of you alive! I tell you Monsieur de la Salle is not with the Iroquois, nor is any priest leading them!

Do you not remember the good Father Marquette? Would such men as he lead tribes to fight one another? If all the Iroquois had stolen French clothes, you would think an army of Jesuits and Messieurs de la Salle were coming against you!"

"But some one has brought the Iroquois upon us!"

"I told you before we know nothing about the Iroquois! But we will go with you now to fight them!"

At that the Illinois put their knives in their belts and ran shouting to throw themselves into the canoes. Warfare with American Indians was always the rush of a mob, where every one acted for himself without military order.

"It is well the good friars are away making their retreat," said Tonty to Boisrondet and etienne 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 etienne Renault. "I saw him go."

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

[Ill.u.s.tration: Long House of the Iroquois.]