France and England in North America Part 7

The scene changed again as they descended. On either hand ran ranges of woody hills, following the course of the river; and when they mounted to their tops, they saw beyond them a rolling sea of dull green prairie, a boundless pasture of the buffalo and the deer, in our own day strangely transformed,--yellow in harvest time with ripened wheat, and dotted with the roofs of a hardy and valiant yeomanry. [Footnote: The change is very recent. Within the memory of men still young, wolves and deer, besides wild swans, wild turkeys, cranes, and pelicans, abounded in this region.

In 1840, a friend of mine shot a deer from the window of a farm-house near the present town of La Salle. Running wolves on horseback was his favorite amus.e.m.e.nt in this part of the country. The buffalo long ago disappeared, but the early settlers found frequent remains of them. Mr. James Clark, of Utica, Ill., told me that he once found a large quant.i.ty of their bones and skulls in one place, as if a herd had perished in the snow-drifts.]

They pa.s.sed the site of the future town of Ottawa, and saw on their right the high plateau of Buffalo Rock, long a favorite dwelling-place of Indians. A league below, the river glided among islands bordered with stately woods. Close on their left towered a lofty cliff, [Footnote: "Starved Rock." It will hold, hereafter, a conspicuous place in the narrative.] crested with trees that overhung the rippling current; while before them spread the valley of the Illinois, in broad low meadows, bordered on the right by the graceful hills at whose foot now lies the village of Utica. A population far more numerous then tenanted the valley.

Along the right bank of the river were cl.u.s.tered the lodges of a great Indian town. Hennepin counted four hundred and sixty of them. [Footnote: _La Louisiane_, 137. Allouez (_Relation_, 1673-9) found three hundred and fifty-one lodges. This was in 1677. The population of this town, which embraced five or six distinct tribes of the Illinois, was continually changing. In 1675, Marquette addressed here an auditory composed of five hundred chiefs and old men, and fifteen hundred young men, besides women and children. He estimates the number of fires at five or six hundred.-- _Voyages de Pere Marquette_, 98 (Lenox). Membre, who was here in 1680, says that it then contained seven or eight thousand souls.--Membre, in Le Clercq, _Premier Etabliss.e.m.e.nt de la Foy_, ii. 173. On the remarkable ma.n.u.script map of Franquelin, 1684, it is set down at twelve hundred warriors, or about six thousand souls. This was after the destructive inroad of the Iroquois. Some years later, Rasle reported upwards of twenty-four hundred families.--_Lettre a son Frere in Lettres Edifiantes_.

At times, nearly the whole Illinois population was gathered here. At other times, the several tribes that composed it separated, some dwelling apart from the rest; so that at one period the Illinois formed eleven villages, while at others they were gathered into two, of which this was much the largest. The meadows around it were extensively cultivated, yielding large crops, chiefly of Indian corn. The lodges were built along the river bank, for a distance of a mile and sometimes far more. In their shape, though not in their material, they resembled those of the Hurons. There were no palisades or embankments.

This neighborhood abounds in Indian relics. The village graveyard appears to have been on a rising ground, near the river, immediately in front of the town of Utica. This is the only part of the river bottom, from this point to the Mississippi, not liable to inundation in the spring floods.

It now forms part of a farm occupied by a tenant of Mr. James Clark. Both Mr. Clark and his tenant informed me that every year great quant.i.ties of human bones and teeth were turned up here by the plough. Many implements of stone are also found, together with beads and other ornaments of Indian and European fabric.] In shape, they were somewhat like the arched top of a baggage wagon. They were built of a framework of poles, covered with mats of rushes, closely interwoven; and each contained three or four fires, of which the greater part served for two families.

Here, then, was the town; but where were the inhabitants? All was silent as the desert. The lodges were empty, the fires dead, and the ashes cold.

La Salle had expected this; for he knew that in the autumn the Illinois always left their towns for their winter hunting, and that the time of their return had not yet come. Yet he was not the less embarra.s.sed, for he would fain have bought a supply of food to relieve his famished followers.

Some of them, searching the deserted town, presently found the _caches_, or covered pits, in which the Indians hid their stock of corn. This was precious beyond measure in their eyes, and to touch it would be a deep offence. La Salle shrank from provoking their anger, which might prove the ruin of his plans; but his necessity overcame his prudence, and he took twenty _minots_ of corn, hoping to appease the owners by presents. Thus provided, the party embarked again, and resumed their downward voyage.

On New-Year's day, 1680, they landed and heard ma.s.s. Then Hennepin wished a happy new year to La Salle first, and afterwards to all the men, making them a speech, which, as he tells us, was "most touching." [Footnote: "Les paroles les plus touchantes." Hennepin (1683), 139. The later editions add the modest qualification, "que je pus."] He and his two brethren next embraced the whole company in turn, "in a manner," writes the father, "most tender and affectionate," exhorting them, at the same time, to patience, faith, and constancy. Two days after these solemnities, they reached the long expansion of the river, then called Pimitoui, and now known as Peoria Lake, and leisurely made their way downward to the site of the city of Peoria. [Footnote: Peoria was the name of one of the tribes of the Illinois. Hennepin says that they crossed the lake four days after leaving the village, which last, as appears by a comparison of his narrative with that of Tonty, must have been on the thirtieth of December.] Here, as evening drew near, they saw a faint spire of smoke curling above the gray, wintry forest, betokening that Indians were at hand. La Salle, as we have seen, had been warned that these tribes had been taught to regard him as their enemy; and when, in the morning, he resumed his course, he was prepared alike for peace or war.

The sh.o.r.es now approached each other; and the Illinois was once more a river, bordered on either hand with overhanging woods. [Footnote: At least it is so now at this place. Perhaps in La Salle's time it was not wholly so, for there is evidence in various parts of the West that the forest has made considerable encroachments on the open country.]

At nine o'clock, doubling a point, he saw about eighty Illinois wigwams, on both sides of the river. He instantly ordered the eight canoes to be ranged in line, abreast, across the stream; Tonty on the right, and he himself on the left. The men laid down their paddles and seized their weapons; while, in this warlike guise, the current bore them swiftly into the midst of the surprised and astounded savages. The camps were in a panic. Warriors whooped and howled; squaws and children screeched in chorus. Some s.n.a.t.c.hed their bows and war-clubs; some ran in terror; and, in the midst of the hubbub, La Salle leaped ash.o.r.e, followed by his men.

None knew better how to deal with Indians; and he made no sign of friends.h.i.+p, knowing that it might be construed as a token of fear. His little knot of Frenchmen stood, gun in hand, pa.s.sive, yet prepared for battle. The Indians, on their part, rallying a little from their fright, made all haste to proffer peace. Two of their chiefs came forward, holding forth the calumet; while another began a loud harangue, to check the young warriors who were aiming their arrows from the farther bank. La Salle, responding to these friendly overtures, displayed another calumet; while Hennepin caught several scared children and soothed them with winning blandishments. [Footnote: Hennepin (1683), 142.] The uproar was quelled, and the strangers were presently seated in the midst of the camp, beset by a throng of wild and swarthy figures.

Food was placed before them; and, as the Illinois code of courtesy enjoined, their entertainers conveyed the morsels with their own hands to the lips of these unenviable victims of their hospitality, while others rubbed their feet with bear's grease. La Salle, on his part, made them a gift of tobacco and hatchets; and, when he had escaped from their caresses, rose and harangued them. He told them that he had been forced to take corn from their granaries, lest his men should die of hunger; but he prayed them not to be offended, promising full rest.i.tution or ample payment. He had come, he said, to protect them against their enemies, and teach them to pray to the true G.o.d. As for the Iroquois, they were subjects of the Great King, and, therefore, brethren of the French; yet, nevertheless, should they begin a war and invade their country, he would stand by the Illinois, give them guns, and fight in their defence, if they would permit him to build a fort among them for the security of his men.

It was, also, he added, his purpose to build a great wooden canoe, in which to descend the Mississippi to the sea, and then return, bringing them the goods of which they stood in need; but if they would not consent to his plans, and sell provisions to his men, he would pa.s.s on to the Osages, who would then reap all the benefits of intercourse with the French, while they were left dest.i.tute, at the mercy of the Iroquois.

[Footnote: Hennepin (1683), 144-149. The later editions omit a part of the above.]

This threat had its effect, for it touched their deep-rooted jealousy of the Osages. They were lavish of promises, and feasts and dances consumed the day. Yet La Salle soon learned that the intrigues of his enemies were still pursuing him. That evening, unknown to him, a stranger appeared in the Illinois camp. He was a Mascoutin chief, named Monso, attended by five or six Miamis, and bringing a gift of knives, hatchets, and kettles to the Illinois. The chiefs a.s.sembled in a secret nocturnal session, where, smoking their pipes, they listened with open ears to the harangue of the envoys. Monso told them that he had come in behalf of certain Frenchmen, whom he named, to warn his hearers against the designs of La Salle, whom he denounced as a partisan and spy of the Iroquois, affirming that he was now on his way to stir up the tribes beyond the Mississippi to join in a war against the Illinois, who, thus a.s.sailed from the east and from the west, would be utterly destroyed. There was no hope for them, he added, but in checking the farther progress of La Salle, or, at least, r.e.t.a.r.ding it, thus causing his men to desert him. Having thrown his firebrand, Monso and his party left the camp in haste, dreading to be confronted with the object of their aspersions. [Footnote: Hennepin (1683), 151, (1704), 205.

Le Clercq, ii. 157. _Memoire du Voyage de M. de la Salle_, MS. This is a paper appended to Frontenac's Letter to the Minister, 9 Nov. 1680.

Hennepin prints a translation of it in the English edition of his later work. It charges the Jesuit Allouez with being at the bottom of the intrigue. La Salle had a special distrust of this missionary, who, on his part, always shunned a meeting with him.

In another memoir, addressed to Frontenac in 1680, La Salle states fully his conviction that Allouez, who was then, he says, among the Miamis, had induced them to send Monso on his sinister errand. See the memoir in Thoma.s.sy, _Geologie, Pratique de la Louisiane_, 203.

The account of the affair of Monso in the spurious work bearing Tonty's name is mere romance.]

In the morning, La Salle saw a change in the behavior of his hosts. They looked on him askance, cold, sullen, and suspicious. There was one Omawha, a chief, whose favor he had won the day before by the politic gift of two hatchets and three knives, and who now came to him in secret to tell him what had taken place at the nocturnal council. La Salle at once saw in it a device of his enemies; and this belief was confirmed, when, in the afternoon, Nicanope, brother of the head chief, sent to invite the Frenchmen to a feast. They repaired to his lodge; but before dinner was served,--that is to say, while the guests, white and red, were seated on mats, each with his hunting-knife in his hand, and the wooden bowl before him, which was to receive his share of the bear's or buffalo's meat, or the corn boiled in fat, with which he was to be regaled; while such was the posture of the company, their host arose and began a long speech. He told the Frenchmen that he had invited them to his lodge less to refresh their bodies with good cheer than to cure their minds of the dangerous purpose which possessed them, of descending the Mississippi. Its sh.o.r.es, he said, were beset by savage tribes, against whose numbers and ferocity their valor would avail nothing: its waters were infested by serpents, alligators, and unnatural monsters; while the river itself, after raging among rocks and whirlpools, plunged headlong at last into a fathomless gulf, which would swallow them and their vessel for ever.

La Salle's men were, for the most part, raw hands, knowing nothing of the wilderness, and easily alarmed at its dangers; but there were two among them, old _coureurs de bois_, who, unfortunately, knew too much; for they understood the Indian orator, and explained his speech to the rest. As La Salle looked around on the circle of his followers, he read an augury of fresh trouble in their disturbed and rueful visages. He waited patiently, however, till the speaker had ended, and then answered him, through his interpreter, with great composure. First, he thanked him for the friendly warning which his affection had impelled him to utter; but, he continued, the greater the danger, the greater the honor; and even if the danger were real, Frenchmen would never flinch from it. But were not the Illinois jealous? Had they not been deluded by lies? "We were not asleep, my brother, when Monso came to tell you, under cover of night, that we were spies of the Iroquois. The presents he gave you, that you might believe his falsehoods, are at this moment buried in the earth under this lodge.

If he told the truth, why did he skulk away in the dark? Why did he not show himself by day? Do you not see that when we first came among you, and your camp was all in confusion, we could have killed you without needing help from the Iroquois? And now, while I am speaking, could we not put your old men to death, while your young warriors are all gone away to hunt? If we meant to make war on you, we should need no help from the Iroquois, who have so often felt the force of our arms. Look at what we have brought you. It is not weapons to destroy you, but merchandise and tools, for your good. If you still harbor evil thoughts of us, be frank as we are, and speak them boldly. Go after this impostor, Monso, and bring him back, that we may answer him, face to face; for he never saw either us or the Iroquois, and what can he know of the plots that he pretends to reveal?" [Footnote: The above is a paraphrase, with some condensation, from Hennepin, whose account is sustained by the other writers.] Nicanope had nothing to reply, and, grunting a.s.sent in the depths of his throat, made a sign that the feast should proceed.

The French were lodged in huts, near the Indian camp; and, fearing treachery, La Salle placed a guard at night. On the morning after the feast, he came out into the frosty air, and looked about him for the sentinels. Not one of them was to be seen. Vexed and alarmed, he entered hut after hut, and roused his drowsy followers. Six of the number, including two of the best carpenters, were nowhere to be found.

Discontented and mutinous from the first, and now terrified by the fictions of Nicanope, they had deserted, preferring the hards.h.i.+ps of the midwinter forest to the mysterious terrors of the Mississippi. La Salle mustered the rest before him, and inveighed sternly against the cowardice and baseness of those who had thus abandoned him, regardless of his many favors. If any here, he added, are afraid, let them but wait till the spring, and they shall have free leave to return to Canada, safely and without dishonor. [Footnote: Hennepin (1683), 162.--_Declaration faite par Moyse Hillaret, charpentier de barque, cy devant au service du Sr. de la Salle_, MS.]

This desertion cut him to the heart. It showed him that he was leaning on a broken reed; and he felt that, on an enterprise full of doubt and peril, there were scarcely four men in his party whom he could trust. Nor was desertion the worst he had to fear; for here, as at Fort Frontenac, an attempt was made to kill him. Tonty tells us that poison was placed in the pot in which their food was cooked, and that La Salle was saved by an antidote which some of his friends had given him before he left France.

This, it will be remembered, was an epoch of poisoners. It was in the following month that the notorious La Voisin was burned alive, at Paris, for practices to which many of the highest n.o.bility were charged with being privy, not excepting some in whose veins ran the blood of the gorgeous spendthrift who ruled the destinies of France. [Footnote: The equally famous Brinvilliers was burned four years before. An account of both will be found in the Letters of Madame de Sevigne. The memoirs of the time abound in evidence of the frightful prevalence of these practices, and the commotion which they excited in all ranks of society.]

In these early French enterprises in the West, it was to the last degree difficult to hold men to their duty. Once fairly in the wilderness, completely freed from the sharp restraints of authority in which they had pa.s.sed their lives, a spirit of lawlessness broke out among them with a violence proportioned to the pressure which had hitherto controlled it.

Discipline had no resources and no guarantee; while those outlaws of the forest, the _coureurs de bois_, were always before their eyes, a standing example of unbridled license. La Salle, eminently skilful in his dealings with Indians, was rarely so happy with his own countrymen; and yet the desertions from which he was continually suffering were due far more to the inevitable difficulty of his position than to any want of conduct.

CHAPTER XIV.

1680.

FORT CReVECOEUR.

BUILDING OF THE FORT.--LOSS OF THE "GRIFFIN."--A BOLD RESOLUTION.

--ANOTHER VESSEL.--HENNEPIN SENT TO THE MISSISSIPPI.--DEPARTURE OF LA SALLE.

La Salle now resolved to leave the Indian camp, and fortify himself for the winter in a strong position, where his men would be less exposed to dangerous influence, and where he could hold his ground against an outbreak of the Illinois or an Iroquois invasion. At the middle of January, a thaw broke up the ice which had closed the river; and he set out in a canoe, with Hennepin, to visit the site he had chosen for his projected fort. It was half a league below the camp, on a little hill, or knoll, two hundred yards from the southern bank. On either side was a deep ravine, and, in front, a low ground, overflowed at high water. Thither, then, the party was removed. They dug a ditch behind the hill, connecting the two ravines, and thus completely isolating it. The hill was nearly square in form. An embankment of earth was thrown up on every side: its declivities were sloped steeply down to the bottom of the ravines and the ditch, and further guarded by _chevaux-de-frise;_ while a palisade, twenty-five feet high, was planted around the whole. The men were lodged in huts, at the angles: in the middle there was a cabin of planks for La Salle and Tonty, and another for the three friars; while the blacksmith had his shed and forge in the rear.

Hennepin laments the failure of wine, which prevented him from saying ma.s.s; but every morning and evening he summoned the men to his cabin, to listen to prayers and preaching, and on Sundays and fete days they chanted vespers. Father Zen.o.be usually spent the day in the Indian camp, striving, with very indifferent success, to win them to the faith, and to overcome the disgust with which their manners and habits inspired him.

Such was the first civilized occupation of the region which now forms the State of Illinois. The spot may still be seen, a little below Peoria. La Salle christened his new fort Fort Crevecoeur. The name tells of disaster and suffering, but does no justice to the iron-hearted constancy of the sufferer. Up to this time he had clung to the hope that his vessel (the "Griffin") might still be safe. Her safety was vital to his enterprise.

She had on board articles of the last necessity to him, including the rigging and anchors of another vessel, which he was to build at Fort Crevecoeur, in order to descend the Mississippi, and sail thence to the West Indies. But now his last hope had well-nigh vanished. Past all reasonable doubt, the "Griffin" was lost; and in her loss he and all his plans seemed ruined alike.

Nothing, indeed, was ever heard of her. Indians, fur-traders, and even Jesuits, have been charged with contriving her destruction. Some say that the Ottawas boarded and burned her, after murdering those on board; others accuse the Pottawattamies; others affirm that her own crew scuttled and sunk her; others, again, that she foundered in a storm. [Footnote: Charlevoix, i. 459; La Potherie, ii. 140; La Hontan, _Memoir on the Fur- Trade of Canada_, MS. I am indebted for a copy of this paper to Winthrop Sargent, Esq., who purchased the original at the sale of the library of the poet Southey. Like Hennepin, La Hontan went over to the English; and this memoir is written in their interest.] As for La Salle, the belief grew in him to a settled conviction, that she had been treacherously sunk by the pilot and the sailors to whom he had intrusted her; and he thought he had found evidence that the authors of the crime, laden with the merchandise they had taken from her, had reached the Mississippi and ascended it, hoping to join Du Lhut, a famous chief of _coureurs de bois_, and enrich themselves by traffic with the northern tribes. [Footnote: _Lettre de la Salle a La Barre, Chicagou,_ 4 _Juin_, 1683, MS. This is a long letter, addressed to the successor of Frontenac, in the government of Canada. La Salle says that a young Indian belonging to him told him that, three years before, he saw a white man, answering the description of the pilot, a prisoner among a tribe beyond the Mississippi. He had been captured with four others on that river, while making his way with canoes laden with goods, towards the Sioux. His companions had been killed. Other circ.u.mstances, which La Salle details at great length, convinced him that the white prisoner was no other than the pilot of the "Griffin." The evidence, however, is not conclusive.]

But whether her lading was swallowed in the depths of the lake, or lost in the clutches of traitors, the evil was alike past remedy. She was gone, it mattered little how. The main-stay of the enterprise was broken; yet its inflexible chief lost neither heart nor hope. One path, beset with hards.h.i.+ps and terrors, still lay open to him. He might return on foot to Fort Frontenac, and bring thence the needful succors.

La Salle felt deeply the dangers of such a step. His men were uneasy, discontented, and terrified by the stories, with which the jealous Illinois still constantly filled their ears, of the whirlpools and the monsters of the Mississippi. He dreaded, lest, in his absence, they should follow the example of their comrades, and desert. In the midst of his anxieties, a lucky accident gave him the means of disabusing them. He was hunting, one day, near the fort, when he met a young Illinois, on his way home, half-starved, from a distant war excursion. He had been absent so long that he knew nothing of what had pa.s.sed between his countrymen and the French. La Salle gave him a turkey he had shot, invited him to the fort, fed him, and made him presents. Having thus warmed his heart, he questioned him, with apparent carelessness, as to the countries he had visited, and especially as to the Mississippi, on which the young warrior, seeing no reason to disguise the truth, gave him all the information he required. La Salle now made him the present of a hatchet, to engage him to say nothing of what had pa.s.sed, and, leaving him in excellent humor, repaired, with some of his followers, to the Illinois camp. Here he found the chiefs seated at a feast of bear's meat, and he took his place among them on a mat of rushes. After a pause, he charged them with having deceived him in regard to the Mississippi, adding that he knew the river perfectly, having been instructed concerning it by the Master of Life. He then described it to them with so much accuracy that his astonished hearers, conceiving that he owed his knowledge to "medicine," or sorcery, clapped their hands to their mouths, in sign of wonder, and confessed that all they had said was but an artifice, inspired by their earnest desire that he should remain among them. [Footnote: _Relation des Decouvertes et des Voyages du Sr. de la Salle, Seigneur et Gouverneur du Fort de Frontenac, au dela des grands Lacs de la Nouvelle France, faits par ordre de Monseigneur Colbert;_ 1679, 80 et 81, MS. Hennepin gives a story which is not essentially different, except that he makes himself a conspicuous actor in it.]

Here was one source of danger stopped; one motive to desert removed. La Salle again might feel a reasonable security that idleness would not breed mischief among his men. The chief purpose of his intended journey was to procure the equipment of a vessel, to be built at Fort Crevecoeur; and he resolved that before he set out he would see her on the stocks. The pit- sawyers and some of the carpenters had deserted; but energy supplied the place of skill, and he and Tonty urged on the work with such vigor that within six weeks the hull was nearly finished. She was of forty tons burden, [Footnote: _Lettre de d.u.c.h.esneau, a_--, 10 _Nov_. 1680, MS.] and built with high bulwarks to protect those within from the arrows of hostile Indians.

La Salle now bethought him that in his absence he might get from Hennepin service of more value than his sermons; and he requested him to descend the Illinois, and explore it to its mouth. The friar, though hardy and daring, would fain have excused himself, alleging a troublesome bodily infirmity; but his venerable colleague, Ribourde,--himself too old for the journey,--urged him to go, telling him that if he died by the way, his apostolic labors would redound to the glory of G.o.d. Membre had been living for some time in the Indian camp, and was thoroughly out of humor with the objects of his missionary efforts, of whose obduracy and filth he bitterly complained. Hennepin proposed to take his place, while he should a.s.sume the Mississippi adventure; but this Membre declined, preferring to remain where he was. Hennepin now reluctantly accepted the proposed task.

"Anybody but me," he says, with his usual modesty, "would have been very much frightened at the dangers of such a journey; and, in fact, if I had not placed all my trust in G.o.d, I should not have been the dupe of the Sieur de la Salle, who exposed my life rashly." [Footnote: "Tout autre que moi en auroit ete fort ebranle. Et en effet, je n'eusse pas ete la duppe du Sieur de la Salle, qui m'exposait temerairement, si je n'eusse mis toute ma confiance en Dieu" (1704), 241.]

On the last day of February, Hennepin's canoe lay at the water's edge; and the party gathered on the bank to bid him farewell. He had two companions, Michel Accau, and a man known as the Picard Du Gay, [Footnote: An eminent writer has mistaken "Picard" for a personal name. Du Gay was called "Le Picard," because he came from the province of Picardy. Accau, and not Hennepin, was the real chief of the party.] though his real name was Antoine Auguel. The canoe was well laden with gifts for the Indians,-- tobacco, knives, beads, awls, and other goods, to a very considerable value, supplied at La Salle's cost; "and, in fact," observes Hennepin, "he is liberal enough towards his friends." [Footnote: (1683), 188. This commendation is suppressed in the later editions.]

The friar bade farewell to La Salle, and embraced all the rest in turn.

Father Ribourde gave him his benediction. "Be of good courage and let your heart be comforted," said the excellent old missionary, as he spread his hands in benediction over the shaven crown of the reverend traveller. Du Gay and Accau plied their paddles; the canoe receded, and vanished at length behind the forest. We will follow Hennepin hereafter on his adventures, imaginary and real. Meanwhile, we will trace the footsteps of his chief, urging his way, in the storms of winter, through those vast and gloomy wilds,--those realms of famine, treachery, and death, that lay betwixt him and his far-distant goal of Fort Frontenac.

On the second of March, [Footnote: Tonty erroneously places their departure on the twenty-second.] before the frost was yet out of the ground, when the forest was still leafless and gray, and the oozy prairie still patched with snow, a band of discontented men were again gathered on the sh.o.r.e for another leave-taking. Hard by, the unfinished s.h.i.+p lay on the stocks, white and fresh from the saw and axe, ceaselessly reminding them of the hards.h.i.+p and peril that was in store. Here you would have seen the calm impenetrable face of La Salle, and with him the Mohegan hunter, who seems to have felt towards him that admiring attachment which he could always inspire in his Indian retainers. Besides the Mohegan, four Frenchmen were to accompany him: Hunaud, La Violette, Collin, and Dautray.

[Footnote: _Declaration faite par Moyse Hillaret, charpentier de barque, MS._] His parting with Tonty was an anxious one, for each well knew the risks that environed both. Embarking with his followers in two canoes, he made his way upward amid the drifting ice; while the faithful Italian, with two or three honest men and twelve or thirteen knaves, remained to hold Fort Crevecoeur in his absence.

CHAPTER XV.

1680.

HARDIHOOD OF LA SALLE.

THE WINTER JOURNEY.--THE DESERTED TOWN.--STARVED ROCK.--LAKE MICHIGAN.--THE WILDERNESS.--WAR PARTIES.--LA SALLE'S MEN GIVE OUT.--ILL TIDINGS.--MUTINY.--CHASTIs.e.m.e.nT OF THE MUTINEERS.

The winter had been a severe one. When La Salle and his five companions reached Peoria Lake, they found it sheeted from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e with ice that stopped the progress of their canoes, but was too thin to bear the weight of a man.

They dragged their light vessels up the bank and into the forest, where the city of Peoria now stands; made two rude sledges, placed the canoes and baggage upon them, and, toiling knee-deep in saturated snow, dragged them four leagues through the woods, till they reached a point where the motion of the current kept the water partially open. They were now on the river above the lake. Ma.s.ses of drift ice, wedged together, but full of crevices and holes, soon barred the way again; and, carrying their canoes ash.o.r.e, they dragged them two leagues over a frozen marsh. Rain fell in floods; and, when night came, they crouched for shelter in a deserted Indian hut.

In the morning, the third of March, they dragged their canoes half a league farther; then launched them, and, breaking the ice with clubs and hatchets, forced their way slowly up the stream. Again their progress was barred, and again they took to the woods, toiling onward till a tempest of moist, half-liquid snow forced them to bivouac for the night. A sharp frost followed, and in the morning the white waste around them was glazed with a dazzling crust. Now, for the first time, they could use their snow- shoes. Bending to their work, dragging their canoes which glided smoothly over the polished surface, they journeyed on hour after hour and league after league, till they reached at length the great town of the Illinois, still void of its inhabitants. [Footnote: Membre says that he was in the town at the time, but this could hardly have been the case. He was, in all probability, among the Illinois in their camp near Fort Crevecoeur.]