The Story of Tonty Part 21

"The shot which had killed Monsieur de la Sale was a signal ... for the a.s.sa.s.sins to draw near. They all repaired to the place where the wretched corpse lay, which they barbarously stripped to the shirt, and vented their malice in opprobrious language. The surgeon Liotot said several times in scorn and derision, There thou liest, Great Ba.s.sa, there thou liest. In conclusion they dragged it naked among the bushes and left it exposed to the ravenous wild Beasts.

"When they came to our camp ... Monsieur Cavelier the priest could not forbear telling them that if they would do the same by him he would forgive them his" (La Salle's) "murder.... They answered they had Nothing to say to him.

... "We were all obliged to stifle our Resentment that it might not appear, for our Lives depended upon it....

We dissembled so well that they were not suspicious of us, and that Temptation we were under of making them away in revenge for those they had murdered, would have easily prevailed and been put in execution, had not Monsieur

Cavelier, the Priest, always positively opposed it, alleging that we ought to leave vengeance to G.o.d."

The Recollet priest, who had seen La Salle's death, answered no questions at Fort St. Louis. Teissier, one of the conspirators, had obtained the Abbe's pardon. The others could truly say La Salle was well when they last saw him.

VI.

TO-DAY.

It is recorded that the Abbe Cavelier and his party arrived safely in France, and that he then concealed the death of La Salle for awhile that he might get possession of property which would have been seized by La Salle's creditors. He died "rich and very old" says the historian,[26]

though he was unsuccessful in a pet.i.tion which he made with his nephew to the king, to have all the explorer's seigniorial propriety in America put in his possession. Like Father Hennepin--who returned to France and wrote his entertaining book to prove himself a greater man than La Salle--the Abbe Cavelier was skilful in turning loss to profit.

It is also recorded that Henri de Tonty, at his own expense, made a long search with men, canoes, and provisions, for La Salle's Texan colony--left by the king to perish at the hands of Indians; that he was deserted by every follower except his Indian and one Frenchman, and nearly died in swamps and canebrakes before he again reached the fort on the Illinois.

To-day you may climb the Rock of St. Louis,--called now Starved Rock from the last stand which the Illinois made as a tribe on that fortress, a hundred years ago, when the Iroquois surrounded and starved them,--and you may look over the valley from which Tonty heard the death lament arise.

A later civilization has cleared it of Indian lodges and set it with villages and homesteads. A low ridge of the old earthwork yet remains on the east verge. Behind the Rock, slopes of milk-white sand still stretch toward a shallow ravine. Beyond that stands a farmhouse full of the relics of French days. The iron-handed commandant of the Rock has left some hint of his strong spirit thereabouts, for even the farmer's boy will speak his name with the respect boys have for heroic men.

Crosses, beads, old iron implements, and countless remains of La Salle's time, turn up everywhere in the valley soil.

Ferns spring, lush and vivid, from the lichened lips of that great sandstone body. The stunted cedars lean over its edge still singing the music of the sea. Sunshine and shade and nearness to the sky are yet there. You see depressions in the soil like gra.s.s-healed wounds, made by the tearing out of huge trees; but local tradition tells you these are the remains of pits dug down to the rock by Frenchmen searching for Tonty's money. At the same time, local tradition is positive that Tonty came back, poor, to the Rock to die, in 1718.

Death had stripped him of every tie. He had helped to build that city near the Mississippi's mouth which was La Salle's object, and had also helped found Mobile. The great west owes more to him than to any other man who labored to open it to the world. Yet historians say the date of his death is unknown, and tradition around the Rock says he crept up the stony path an old and broken man, helped by his Indian and a priest, died gazing from its summit, and was buried at its west side. The tribes, while they held the land, continued to cover his grave with wild roses. But men may tread over him now, for he lies lost in the earth as La Salle was lost in the wilderness of the south.

No justice ever was done to this man who gave to his friends with both hand of flesh and hand of iron, caring nothing for recompense; and whom historians, priests, tradition, savages, and his own deeds unite in praising. But as long as the friendship of man for man is beautiful, as long as the mult.i.tude with one impulse lift above themselves those men who best express the race, Henri de Tonty's memory must stand like the Rock of St. Louis.[27]

FOOTNOTES:

[26] Parkman.

[27] "In 1690 the proprietorship of Fort St. Louis was granted to Tonty jointly with La Forest.... In 1702 the governor of Canada, claiming that the charter of the fort had been violated, decided to discontinue it. Although thus officially abandoned it seems to have been occupied as a trading post until 1718. Deprived of his command and property, Tonty engaged with Le Moyne d'Iberville in various successful expeditions."--John Moses' History of Illinois.

THE END.