On the Atlantic seaboard English towns were rooting themselves through settlers who owned and cultivated their homesteads and meant to keep them forever. Along the Pacific coast Spanish priests drilling the heathen into civilized farmers owned the gardens where the adobe missions were building, and stood ready to defend them. In the Mississippi Valley between the two the little Rock of the Illinois, a pinpoint on the map, a speck on the horizon, by the right of its twenty armed Frenchmen held the whole vast region of the Great River for France.
And the twenty Frenchmen, every one as careless, gay, and irresponsible as Anthony, were playing ball while Fort Saint Louis stood empty and neglected.
Tonty was justified in his anxiety as he listened to the Sieur La Salle say: "The present governor of Canada is not like our former friend, Frontenac. This commandant is an old man and a greedy politician from Paris. He knows nothing of Indian warfare and does not see the importance of this post. He will not send the men we need to defend these towns nor will he give us the munitions and goods that we have paid for in the furs already forwarded to him."
"There are less than a hundred pounds of powder—" interrupted Tonty, "and the Iroquois are threatening even now—"
"Look!" cried La Salle, "look! Something has happened among the ball players."
The dots of Indians, far below, had massed in a crowd at the center of their field and as suddenly separated again with shrill wails, each player going at swiftest pace in a different direction.
"Bad news! Prepare yourself for a deluge. As fast as the warning spreads they will come here by villages. Put a good face on it," and the nobleman made ready to receive his tenants. He was their overlord; and he was at his best when dangers assailed him. His whole life was spent in defying one tragedy after another. "There are stores enough to feed them for several days—"
"When the powder gives out we can use bows and arrows, stones and logs—"
The bearer of evil tidings had fallen exhausted at the base of the Rock. Anthony was the first to come over the rim with the one word message, "Iroquois."