ANTHONY stared at the needle of his compass. He reversed the box and looked again. "Of course the needle points to the pole; it can't do anything else." He turned his face to the north. "Now my right hand is toward the east bank of the river; my left hand is toward the west. I have been going up the river all day." He had been following the Mississippi and he wrinkled his nose in perplexity as he made the discovery. "The sun is setting on the east bank of this Great River!"
The more he thought about it, the more he was sure. "The channel wanders so crookedly over this flat plain that the stream, whose general direction is south, must be going straight north at this particular turn in its winding!" He had guessed the right answer to the Southern riddle, "Can you name a spot where the sun sets in the east?"
The dislocated sunset had a lowering aspect. Anthony scanned the clouds with the eye of a weather prophet. "It looks like more rain. A wet moon is overhanging these lands, already quite damp enough."
Two Indians, dripping from a recent shower, were sloshing along in the mud of the bank. They signaled him. He put ashore in the funny little coracle he was using. A coracle is a fishing-tub made of a wooden frame covered with skin. It is as safe as it is slow. The French prefer it to the canoe for angling.
"Medicine-men danced all night," began the Indians. "Our old Father of Waters, the Meact-Chassippi, is angry because the white man has tried to imprison him within his own banks. All land belongs to Meact-Chassippi. He wanders over it where he wills. Who defies him must perish. He is in a rage and has come to destroy our camp. The white men who oppose him must help us."
Anthony never treated any Indian messenger carelessly. Under every flowery speech and childish demand was some vital human need. These Chickasaws were leagued with the rival English. They were bringing their warlike camps nearer and nearer to the French settlements. All the doings of the colonists and every unfriendly act of nature they construed as a good reason for criticizing or attacking the posts.
"It is easy for me to stop the Great River's flow," replied Anthony, with fine sarcasm. "I will do it after your tribe has taken all your camps back into the hills of the Chickasaw country where the Meact-Chassippi can't get you. Tell your chiefs to move away to their own high ground. Then will the inundation cease."
"We cannot return with a message. As we came the lowlands flooded themselves behind us."