The Story of Tonty Part 16

"Certainly, without the goods my brother would have him deliver to me, without a canoe or any provision whatever for our journey!"

"They say here that Monsieur de Tonty led only two hundred Indians and fifty Frenchmen to aid the new governor in his war against the Iroquois," observed Joutel. "He may not come back at all."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Joutel, what are you writing there?"--_Page 169._]

"I have thought of that," the Abbe mused. "If Tonty be dead we are indeed wasting our time here, when we ought to be well on our way to Quebec, to say naught of the voyage to France. But this fellow in charge of the Rock refuses to honor my demands without more authority."

"He received us most kindly, and we have been his guests a month," said Joutel.

"I would be his guest no longer than this pa.s.sing night if my difficulties were solved," said the Abbe. "For there is even Colin's sister to torment me. I know not where she is,--whether in Montreal or in the wilderness between Montreal and this fort. If I had taken her back with Colin to France, she would now be safe with my mother. There was another evidence of my poor brother's madness! He was determined Mademoiselle Cavelier should be sent out to Fort St. Louis. When he sailed on that last great voyage, he sat in one of the s.h.i.+ps the king furnished him and in the last lines he wrote his mother refused to tell her his destination! And at the same time he wrote instructions to the nuns of St. Joseph concerning the niece whose guardian he never was. She must be sent to Fort St. Louis at the first safe opportunity! She was to have a grant in this country to replace her fortune which he had used.

And this he only told me during his fever at St. Domingo on the voyage."

Joutel folded and put away his notes. The Abbe's often repeated complaints seldom stirred a reply from him. Though on this occasion he thought of saying,--

"Monsieur de Tonty may bring news of her from Montreal."

"You understand, Joutel," exclaimed the Abbe, approaching the candle, "that it is best,--that it is necessary not to tell Tonty what we know?"

"I have understood what you said, Monsieur the Abbe."

"You are the only man who gives me anxiety. All the rest are willing to keep silence. Is it not my affair? I wish you would cease writing your sc.r.a.ps. It irritates me to come into this storehouse and find you writing your sc.r.a.ps." He looked severely at the young man, who leaned against the box making no further promise or reply. Then seizing the candle, the Abbe stepped to a bed made of bales, where, wrapped in skins and blankets, young Colin Cavelier lay uttering the acknowledgement of peaceful sleep. Another boy lay similarly wrapped on the floor beside him.

The priest's look at these two was brief. He went on to the remaining man in the room, a hairy fellow, lying coiled among hides and pressed quite into a corner. The man appeared unconscious, emitting his breath in short puffs.

Abbe Cavelier gazed upon him with shudders.

The over-taxed candle flame stooped and expired, the scent of its funeral pile rising from a small red point in darkness.

FOOTNOTES:

[17] Joutel. English Translation "from the edition just published at Paris, 1714 A. D."

[18] "Le Rocher," this natural fortress was commonly called by the French. See Charlevoix.

II.

THE FRIEND AND BROTHER

While Abbe Cavelier stood in the storehouse, Tonty, a few miles away, was setting his camp around a spring of sulphur water well known to the hunters of St. Louis. The spring boiled its white sand from unmeasured depths at the root of an oak, and spread a pool which slipped over its barrier in a thin stream to the Illinois.

Though so near his fortress, Tonty and Greysolon du Lhut, fresh from their victorious campaign with the governor of New France against the Iroquois, thought it not best to expose their long array of canoes in darkness on the river. They had with them[19] women and children,--fragments of families, going under their escort to join the colony at Fort St. Louis.

Du Lhut's army of Indians from the upper lakes had returned directly to their own villages to celebrate the victory; but that unwearied rover himself, with a few followers, had dragged his gouty limbs across portages to the Illinois, to sojourn longer with Tonty.

Their camp was some distance from the river, up an alluvial slope of the north sh.o.r.e. Opposite, a line of cliffs, against which the Illinois washes for miles, caught the eye through darkness by its sandy glint; and not far away, on the north side of the river, that long ridge known as Buffalo Rock made a ma.s.s of gloom.

Dependent and unarmed colonists were placed in the centre of the camp.

Tonty himself, with his usual care on this journey, had helped to pitch a tent of blankets and freshly cut poles for Mademoiselle Barbe Cavelier and the officer's wife, who clung to her in the character of guardian.

The other immigrants understood and took pleasure in this small temporary home, built nightly for a girl whose proud silence among them they forgave as the caprice of beauty. The wife of the officer Bellefontaine, on her part, rewarded Tonty by attaching her ceaseless presence to Barbe. She was a timid woman, very small-eyed and silent, who took refuge in Barbe's larger shadow, and found it convenient for an under-sized duenna whose husband was so far in the wilds.

Mademoiselle Cavelier was going to Fort St. Louis at the first opportunity since her uncle La Salle's request, made three years before.

At this time it was not known whether La Salle had succeeded or failed in his last enterprise. He had again convinced the king. His seigniories and forts were restored to him, and governor's agents and a.s.sociates driven out of his possessions. He had sailed from France with a fleet of s.h.i.+ps, carrying a large colony to plant at the Mississippi's mouth. His brother the Abbe Cavelier, two nephews, priests, artisans, young men, and families were in his company, which altogether numbered over four hundred people.

Fogs or storms, or dogged navigators disagreeing with and disobeying him, had robbed him of his destination; for news came back to France, by a returning s.h.i.+p, of loss and disaster and a colony dropped like castaways on some inlet of the Gulf.

The evening meal was eaten and sentinels were posted. Even petulant children had ceased to fret within the various enclosures. Indians and Frenchmen lay asleep under their canoes which they had carried from the river, and by propping with stones or stakes at one side, converted into low-roofed shelters.

Barbe's tent was beside the spring near the camp-fire. She could, by parting overlapped blanket edges, look out of her cloth house into those living depths of bubbling white sand, so like the thoughts of young maids. Two or three fallen leaves, curled into quaint craft, slid across the pool's surface, hung at its barrier, and one after the other slipped over and disappeared along the thread of water. A hollow of light was scooped above the camp-fire, outside of which darkness stood an impenetrable rind, for the sky had all day been thickened by clouds.

The Demoiselle Bellefontaine, tucked neatly as a mole under her ridge, rested from her fears in sleep; and Barbe made ready to lie down also, sweeping once more the visible world with a lingering eye. She saw an Indian creeping on hands and knees toward Tonty's lodge. He entered darkness the moment she saw him. The girl arose trembling and put on her clothes. She had caught no impression of his tribe; but if he were a warrior of the camp, his crawling so secretly must threaten harm to Tonty. She did not distinctly know what she ought to do, except warn Monsieur de Tonty.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

But on a sudden the iron-handed commandant ran past her tent, shouting to his men. There was a sound like the rus.h.i.+ng of bees through the air, and horrible faces smeared with paint, tattooed bodies, and hands brandis.h.i.+ng weapons closed in from darkness; the men of the camp rose up with answering yells, and the flash and roar of muskets surrounded Barbe as if she were standing in some nightmare world of lightning and thunder. She heard the screams of children and frightened mothers. She saw Tonty in meteor rushes rallying men, and striking down, with nothing but his iron hand, a foe who had come to quarters too close for fire-arms. Indian after Indian fell under that sledge, and a cry of terror in Iroquois French, which she could understand, rose through the whoop of invasion,--

"The Great-Medicine-Hand! The Great-Medicine-Hand!"

Brands were caught from the fire and thrown like bolts, sparks hissing as they flew. Her tent was overturned and she fell under it with the Demoiselle Bellefontaine, who uttered m.u.f.fled squeals.

When Barbe dragged her companion out of the midst of poles, all the hurricane of action had pa.s.sed by. Its rush could be heard down the slope, then the splas.h.i.+ng of bodies and tumultuous paddling in the river. Guns yet flashed. She heard Frenchmen and Illinois running with their canoes down to the water to give chase. Farther and farther away sounded the retreat, and though women and children continued to make outcry, Barbe could hear no groans.

The brands of the fire were still scattered, but hands were busy collecting and bringing them back,--processions of gigantic glow-worms meeting by dumb appointment in a nest of hot ashes and trodden logs. All faces were drowned in the dark until these re-united embers fitfully brought them out. A crowd of frightened immigrants drew around the blaze, calling each other by name, and demanding to know who was scalped.

Barbe saw nothing better to do than to stand beside her wrecked tent, and the Demoiselle Bellefontaine burrowed closely to her, uttering distressed noises.

The pursuers presently returned and quieted the camp. Tonty had not lost a man, though a few were wounded. The attacking party carried off with them every trace of their repulse.

Overturned lodges were now set straight, and as soon as Bellefontaine's wife found hers inhabitable she hid herself within it. But Barbe waited to ask the busy commandant,--

"Monsieur de Tonty, have you any wound?"

"No, mademoiselle," he answered, pausing to breathe himself, and seize upon an interview so unusual. "I hope you have not been greatly disturbed. The Iroquois are now entirely driven off, and they will not venture to attack us again."

With excited voice Barbe a.s.sured him she had remained tranquil through the battle.

"We do not call this a battle," laughed Tonty. "These were a party of Senecas, who rallied after defeat and have followed us to our own country. They tried to take the camp by surprise, and nearly did it; but Sanomp crept between sentinels and waked me."

"Who is Sanomp, monsieur?"

"Do you remember the Iroquois Indian who came to Father Hennepin's chapel at Fort Frontenac?"

"Yes, monsieur; was he among these Senecas?"