THE FATE OF LA SALLE.
BY ROBERT H. FULLER.
In early times America was to the Spaniards a region of silver and gold, which were to be wrung from the natives and squandered in Europe; to the French and the Dutch it was a country of furs, which were to be purchased from the Indians for beads, knives, and guns, and sold across the sea at an enormous profit; to the English it was a land of homes, with liberty to think and act. Thus, while the Spaniards were delving in the mines of Mexico and Peru and freighting their argosies, and while the French couriers of the woods were steering their fur-laden canoes down the St. Lawrence, the English colonists along the Atlantic coast were cultivating the soil, making and enforcing laws, and gaining a foothold which was to remain firm long after their more restless and adventurous neighbors had vanished from the New World.
Nevertheless, the early French explorers, heedless of danger, bold and free as the Indians themselves, threading rivers and exploring lakes in their canoes, ranging through limitless solitudes of forest or over interminable wastes of prairie, performed a service of the utmost value to the future nation. They mapped out the road which slower but surer feet were to follow, and if they could not organize and hold the enormous territory which they claimed, at least they prepared it for those who could.
Above the crowd of ragged and fearless adventurers who throng through the history of France's vain endeavors to found an empire in the Western World, the figure of Réné-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle, towers like a statue of bronze. He was born in 1643, and was the son of a rich merchant of Rouen. A brief connection with the religious order of the Jesuits deprived him of his inheritance, and at the age of twenty-two he sailed for Canada to seek his fortune, turning his back upon the Old World, as did many another young Frenchman of gentle breeding at that time.
He was granted an estate, afterward named La Chine, near Montreal. The name of the place is a memory of the belief, long cherished by the French, that by way of the St. Lawrence, the Great Lakes, and the Mississippi, a passage to the Pacific Ocean and the wealth of the East might be found. On his domain, which served as an outpost of Montreal against the incursions of the ferocious Iroquois, he lived a life of rude freedom, ruling like a young seigneur over the tenants who gathered about his stockade.
But he could not long remain quiet. The thirst for adventure was strong upon him, and, listening to the tales of his Indian visitors, he determined to explore the Ohio and the Mississippi to the "Vermilion Sea," or the Gulf of California, into which he was convinced the great river flowed. At his own expense he fitted out an expedition, and pushed boldly into the trackless wilderness.
This was the beginning of a career of hardship and danger, of successes achieved in the teeth of seemingly insurmountable obstacles and in spite of the plots of powerful enemies, with a steadfast fortitude unparalleled in the annals of discovery. La Salle's dream of reaching the Pacific was soon dispelled; but it was the nature of his mind to rear new plans on the ruins of the old. He never grew discouraged. In the presence of calamities which would have overwhelmed a less stout heart his brain was busy seeking new paths to the end he had in view.
At his first step he encountered the jealous hostility of the Jesuits, then powerful both at Quebec and Paris. To this was added the enmity of those interested in the fur trade, who feared that he would disturb their traffic; the hatred of all who had betrayed, deserted, and robbed him—no small number; and the annoyances of such as had been induced to invest in his schemes when his own resources were exhausted. While he was absent, bearing the flag of France over thousands of miles of new territory, slanderers and detractors were busy at home destroying his credit, thwarting his plans, ridiculing his hopes, and seeking to rob him of his honors. The obstacles cast in his path by nature or savage tribes were slight when compared with those reared against him by his own country men. But, unshaken in his purpose, he toiled on year after year, enduring exposure, hunger, cold, illness, and treachery, exploring the Ohio and the Illinois, and finally, in 1682, descending the Mississippi to its mouth.
This was his crowning exploit. He was now a man of middle age, inured to peril and hardship, and burdened with a heavy load of responsibility. He was stern, reserved, and self-reliant. There were few besides Tonti, his devoted lieutenant, upon whom he could rely. His followers were fickle savages or, worse still, the idle and insubordinate offscour of Europe. He had built and equipped a vessel on the lakes, and she had been sunk with her cargo. He had nearly finished another on the Illinois, when his men mutinied in his absence, and deserted. He had erected forts and planted colonies, which were destroyed or ordered abandoned by a hostile governor. He had been robbed again and again of the stores and supplies which he had transported at great cost into the wilderness, and of the furs which he sent back to Canada. At last he felt that if he was to secure for France the rich valley of the Mississippi and the boundless region drained by its tributaries, and repay his creditors through the monopoly of the trade which he hoped to establish there, he must secure the support of the King himself. Accordingly he turned toward France.
His plan found favor with Louis XIV. and his ministers. He was given four vessels, which carried, besides supplies, a hundred soldiers, mechanics and laborers, several families, a number of girls who hoped to find husbands in the new colony, and thirty volunteers. Among these last were several boys, two of them his own nephews, of whom one was destined to be the cause of his death. The expedition was to make a settlement at the mouth of the Mississippi, and organize a force to sweep the Spaniards out of New Mexico. This La Salle promised to do. At last, after so many trials and disappointments, he seemed to stand on the threshold of success.
But the dark cloud of misfortune which had so long lowered above his head reappeared when the vessels approached their destination. Numbers of the colonists fell ill on the voyage. At St. Domingo, La Salle himself was stricken down by fever, and his life was despaired of. One of his vessels was taken by Spanish pirates, and his men grew discontented and undisciplined. To cap the climax, the fleet missed the mouth of the Mississippi, and the colonists landed four hundred miles to the westward, at Matagorda Bay. There another vessel was lost while attempting to enter the harbor, and a third, which had acted as escort only, returned to France.
It did not take the unhappy pioneers long to discover that they were not on the Mississippi, and La Salle, with unabated energy, set out in search of the "fatal river." He did not find it, and on his return the last of the vessels was lost, removing all hope of escape by sea. The sufferings of the little colony were great, and La Salle formed the desperate resolution of penetrating through the wilderness to Canada for help. Some of his followers afterward escaped by this dangerous path, but he himself was never to see Canada again. On the march food ran short, and seven men were sent out to forage. Among them was a man named Duhaut, who hated La Salle, and had once deserted him. The party killed some buffaloes, and were curing the meat when one of La Salle's nephews, Moranget, who had been sent in search of them with a companion, arrived. Moranget did not lack courage, but he did lack prudence. He angered the men by finding fault with them unjustly.
Duhaut seized the opportunity, and drew four of the others into his plot. That night Moranget and his companion, with La Salle's faithful Indian servant, were murdered as they slept. The next morning, La Salle, full of anxious foreboding at his nephew's failure to return, went after him in company with a priest. Even in his defenceless condition the wretches who had resolved on his death did not dare to attack him openly. Crouched in the dry grass like savages, they awaited his coming, and shot him through the brain as he approached. Then they came out of their concealment and triumphed over the body, crying: "There thou liest, tyrant! There thou liest!"
So on the prairies of Texas perished La Salle. His name heads the list of resolute adventurers who pierced the secrets of the wilderness, and led the march of civilization across the continent. He was a man of action. When beset, as he often was, by doubts and difficulties, he saw at once what must be done, and did it without delay. Had his life been spared he would, no doubt, have rescued the colonists. Without his aid they perished miserably, Duhaut, the chief murderer, being shot down by another of the accomplices. Of all the expedition only seven, including the explorer's brother and his remaining nephew, reached Canada.
[GRATITUDE.]
I think all little children should
Be thankful in their prayers
To God for having been so good
To make their parents theirs.
[HOW HARRY SOWERBY EARNED PROMOTION.]
BY WILLIAM HEMMINGWAY.
"May I go out to Blairstown on your special, Mr. Gannon?" asked Harry Sowerby, the telegraph operator at Hammonds.
"What do you want to go for, bub?" replied the superintendent of the Lexington and Danville Railroad. "It's a nasty night for travelling, and—"
"I haven't been home in two months," said the boy, eagerly. "I may not have another chance for a long time, and it's near Christmas. I can report the departure of your train to 'X' office, and then there's nothing more to be done here till 6.45 to-morrow morning."
"Come on, then," answered the superintendent. He knew that Harry Sowerby, the youngest telegraph operator on the road, was anxious to see his mother and sisters, and he knew what a lonely place Hammonds Station was.
The sounder clicked rapidly for a few moments as Harry notified the night train-despatcher at "X" office that the superintendent's special was passing westward. Then he quickly cut out the telegraph instruments, quenched the office lamp, and jumped aboard the car as it slowly rolled past the glare of the bright platform light and out into the black rain. He could not remember having ever heard such a heavy downpour. The snow that had hidden the earth for weeks was fast melting under it.
Harry Sowerby was only sixteen years old. He had been at Hammonds one year, and he was heartily tired of it. The nearest house to the station was a quarter of a mile away. He was anxious to be promoted to the train-despatcher's staff at "X" office, that mysterious place whence the orders came that governed all the trains on the road. But Mr. Gannon had put him off, telling him that he was too young.
"When you've had more experience, bub," said the big, good-natured superintendent, "maybe the dispatcher will need you. You're young yet, you know."
This was a tender point with Harry. He knew he really looked as old as most fellows of eighteen, and he felt that he had more experience at railroading than many fellows of twenty-five. Besides, if he were sent to "X," his pay would be increased to sixty-five dollars a month, and he could send his sisters to a better school.
Suddenly steam was shut off. Harry knew it by the silence with which the light train plunged forward, without a sound from the exhaust or the cylinders. Then came the sharp hissing of the air-brakes, but the train ran on unchecked. One blast of the whistle called the brakeman to the platform, where he whirled the brake-wheel swiftly, and set it up as hard as if his life depended on that one act. A grinding noise forward and a snarling from the driving-wheels told Harry's experienced ears that the engineer had "thrown her over and given her sand"—that is, he had reversed the lever and opened the sand-box, so that the driving-wheels, now turning backward, might grip the wet rails firmly.
Mr. Gannon, in his hip boots and mackintosh, was out in the snow and mud and up ahead in less than half a minute. The front of the locomotive was within thirty feet of the beginning of Williston cut. Tom Jackson had not stopped her a moment too soon. The heavy rain had washed down tons of earth and bowlders from the banks on to the track. The cut was blocked for fully thirty yards. What it was that whispered danger to the engineer he himself could not tell, but he had felt a sudden premonition that it was not safe to run through the cut.
Harry Sowerby saw the brakeman go back with a red lantern to protect the superintendent's special train from No. 576, the way freight that was due thirty minutes later. Suddenly the light flickered out. The wind and rain were too much for it. Harry knew that the same thing might happen just as the heavy freight train came along. It sickened him to think of what would follow. He thought of the train crew scattered on the snowy ground, bruised, perhaps killed.
The boy's head throbbed with excitement. If he only could do something to save the train! He had heard Ryan, the rear brakeman, say that there was not a danger torpedo on the car. He ran hopelessly up to the locomotive tender, knowing that there was none there either, but thinking that perhaps he might find something. And as he searched in the grimy tool-box he saw a long piece of heavy copper wire. There flashed across his mind the recollection of how Kline, the lineman, had once said it was possible for a "good man" to telegraph from any point on the line. Here was something worth trying.
"Bring a torch, Phil," he said to the fireman. Away he ran down the track, the coil of wire in one hand and a pair of pliers in the other. Throwing the coil around his neck and sticking the pliers in his pocket, Harry began to climb the nearest telegraph pole, while Phil helped him all he could with his free hand.
The young telegrapher soon threw his leg over the cross-arm, and braced himself securely. Fireman Phil held the flaring torch as high as he could, so that the light was only fifteen feet below the wire. The torch was so liberally soaked with petroleum that the wind could not blow it out.
Harry felt thankful when he saw, on the opposite end of the cross-arm from that which held the single telegraph line, a new glass insulator that had been placed for another line which was soon to be strung. That made his work easier. Using his pliers dexterously, he quickly spliced one end of the coil of copper wire around the wire of the telegraph line about six inches away from the cross-arm. He twined the copper wire around and around the live wire, so that it clung like a wild-grape vine tendril to a tree bough.
Then he took three turns of the copper wire around the empty insulator. Now was the trying moment. If he cut the line, would its sagging weight break his splice of copper wire? Yet if he was to carry out his plan he must separate the telegraph line into two parts, so that by bringing the ends together he could make the Morse signals. With a few nips of the pliers he cut the telegraph line, and although it fell away with a sharp snap, the copper-wire splice held it safely hung to the new insulator.
Now he was in possession of a rude but effective telegraph key. By touching the west end of the broken line, which was the jagged bit of wire that stuck up from the old insulator, against the east end of the line, which was the end of the copper wire leading back from the new insulator, he could complete the electric circuit. He tapped the end of the copper wire upon the line wire that stuck up. A tiny blue spark flashed out, and he felt sharp pains in his wet right hand as the current shot through it. But what mattered the pain? Because the current shocked him so, he felt sure that the line was "O K." Now he began tapping again. He let the wires barely touch to make dots, and held them together an instant to make dashes. He began to call up the station at Woodside, where No. 576 was due to pass within the next ten minutes. Then he held the wire ends together to receive an answer. He soon could feel the stinging, burning current bite the dots and dashes into his hand like this:
"— — — — — —— —— —— — —."
Now he telegraphed this order:
"Operator, Woodside,—Flag and hold all west-bound trains. Williston cut blockaded, and a special is stuck at east end."
He signed Mr. Gannon's name to this. Then he held the wires together while the operator telegraphed back the order, according to the railroad rules, to show that he understood. The man at Woodside was surprised at the message, but he quickly understood its importance.
Harry twisted the loose end of the copper wire around the little piece of wire that stuck up, so that the telegraph line should not be broken, and then he slid down the pole.
"They're holding all west-bound trains at Woodside!" he shouted to Phil as his feet touched the ground.
Phil gave him a congratulatory slap on the back that nearly upset him. Then Phil ran to where the superintendent and the train crew were standing, two hundred yards back of the train, trying to shield a red light and keep it burning. He yelled the good news to them, and as Harry came slowly up to the little group, the crew cheered him and hugged him and told him he had saved the six lives on No. 576.
"Bub," said Mr. Gannon, as he gravely shook Harry's burned right hand, "I guess you've had enough experience to go to 'X' office. We need men as quick-witted and plucky as you in this business. I'm going to report your conduct to the directors of the road at their next meeting."