The Story of Tonty Part 6

The gate of Fort Frontenac opened to admit several persons headed by a man who had a closely wrapped girl by his side. Before wooden palisades and walls of stone enclosed her, she turned her face to look across the mouth of Cataraqui River and at Lake Ontario rippling full of submerged moonlight. A magnified moon was rising. Farther than eye could reach it softened that northern landscape and provoked mystery in the shadows of the Thousand Islands.

South of the fort were some huts set along the margin of Ontario according to early French custom, which demanded a canoe highway in front of every man's door. West of these, half hid by forest, was an Indian village; and distinct between the two rose the huge white cross planted by Father Hennepin when he was first sent as missionary to Fort Frontenac.

An officer appeared beside the sentinel at the gate, and took off his hat before the m.u.f.fled shape led first into his fortress. She bent her head for this civility and held her father's arm in silence. Canoemen and followers with full knowledge of the place moved on toward barracks or bakery. But the officer stopped their master, saying,--

"Monsieur le Ber, I have news for you."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"I have none for you," responded the merchant. "It is ever the same story,--men lost in the rapids and voyagers drenched to the skin.

However, we had but one man drowned this time, and are only half dead of fatigue ourselves. Let us have some supper at once. What are your reports?"

"Monsieur, the Sieur de la Salle arrived here a few hours ago from the fort on the Illinois."

"The Sieur de la Salle?"

"Yes, monsieur."

"Why did you let him in?" demanded Le Ber, fiercely. "He hath no rights in this fortress now."

"His men were much exhausted, monsieur."

"He could have camped at the settlement."

"Monsieur, I wish to tell you at once that the last families have left the settlement."

"The Indians are yet there?"

"Yes, monsieur. But our settlers were afraid our Indians would join the other Iroquois."

"How many men had La Salle with him?"

"No more than half your party, monsieur. There was Jolycoeur--"

"I tell you La Salle has no rights in this fort," interrupted Le Ber.

"If he meddles with his merchandise stored here which the government has seized upon, I will arrest him."

"Yes, monsieur. The Father Louis Hennepin has also arrived from the wilderness after great peril and captivity."

"Tell me that La Salle's man Tonty is here! Tell me that there is a full muster of all the vagabonds from Michillimackinac! Tell me that Fort St.

Louis of the Illinois hath moved on Fort Frontenac!"

The merchant's voice ascended a pyramid of vexation.

"No, monsieur. Monsieur de Tonty is not here. And the Father Louis Hennepin[7] only rests a few days before the fatigue of descending the rapids to Montreal. It was a grief to him to find his mission and the settlement so decayed after only five years' absence."

"Why do you fret me with the decay of the mission and breaking up of the settlement? If I were here as commandant of this fort I might then be blamed for its ruin. Perhaps my a.s.sociates made a mistake in retaining an officer who had served under La Salle."

The commandant made no retort, but said,--

"Monsieur, I had almost forgotten to tell you we have another fair demoiselle within our walls to the honor of Fort Frontenac. The Abbe Cavelier with men from Lachine, arrived this morning, his young niece being with him. There are brave women in Montreal."

"That is right,--that is right!" exclaimed the irritable merchant. "Call all the Cavelier family hither and give up the fortress. I heard the Abbe had ventured ahead of me."

"Monsieur le Ber, what can they do against the king and the governor?

Both king and governor have dispossessed La Salle. I admitted him as any wayfarer. The Abbe Cavelier came with a grievance against his brother.

He hath lost money by him the same as others."

"Thou shalt not be kept longer in the night air," said Le Ber, with sudden tenderness to his daughter. "There is dampness within these walls to remind us of our drenchings in the rapids."

"We have fire in both upper and lower rooms of the officers' quarters,"

said the commandant.

They walked toward the long dwelling, their shadows stretching and blending over the ground.

"Where have you lodged these men?" inquired Le Ber.

The officer pointed to the barrack end of the structure made of hewed timbers. The wider portion intended for commandant's headquarters was built of stone, with Norman eaves and windows. Near the barracks stood a guardhouse. The bakery was at the opposite side of the gateway, and beyond it was the mill. La Salle had founded well this stronghold in the wilderness. Walls of hewed stone enclosed three sides, nine small cannon being mounted thereon.[8] Palisades were the defence on the water side.

Fort Frontenac was built with four bastions. In two of these bastions were vaulted towers which served as magazines for ammunition.[9] A well was dug within the walls.

"Have you no empty rooms in the officers' quarters?"

The moon threw silhouette palisades on the ground, and made all these buildings cut blocks of shadow. There was a stir of evening wind in the forest all around.

"The men are in the barracks. But Sieur de la Salle is in the officers'

house."

"May I ask you, Commandant," demanded Le Ber, "where you propose to lodge my daughter whom I have brought through the perils of the rapids, and cannot now return with?"

"Mademoiselle le Ber is most welcome to my own apartment, monsieur, and I will myself come downstairs."

"One near mine for yourself, monsieur. But with the Abbe and his niece and the boy and La Salle and Father Hennepin, to say no more, can we have many empty rooms? Father Hennepin is lodged downstairs, but La Salle hath his old room overlooking the river."

"How does he appear, Commandant?"

"Worn in his garb and very thin visaged, but unmoved by his misfortunes as a man of rock. Any one else would be prostrate and hopeless."

"A madman," p.r.o.nounced Le Ber.

Careless laughter resounded from the barracks. Some water creature made so distinct a splash and struggle in Cataraqui River that imagination followed the widening circles spreading from its body until an island broke their huge circ.u.mference.

"See that something be sent us from the bakehouse," said Le Ber to the commandant, before leading his daughter into the quarters. "My men have brought provisions from Montreal."

"We can give you a good supper, monsieur. Two young deer were brought in to-day. As for Monsieur de la Salle," the commandant added, turning back from the door of the barracks, "you will perhaps not meet him at all in the officers' quarters. He ate and threw himself down at once to sleep, and he is in haste to set forward to Quebec."

The bakehouse was illuminated by its oven fire which shone with a dull crimson through the open door, but failed to find out dusky corners where bales, barrels, and cook's tools were stored. The oven was built in the wall, of stone and cement. The cook, a skipping little fellow smocked in white and wearing a cap, said to himself as he raked out coals and threw them in the fireplace,--

"What a waste of good material is this, when they glow and breathe with such ardor to roast some worthy martyr!"