The Man with the Iron Hand

by John Carl Parish

Out of danger, the adventurers fell to wondering from what lands came the mighty stream. The stout-hearted Marquette vowed to stem its powerful current at some future day and follow its waters to their source, thinking that he might thus find another stream which would take him westward into the great Vermilion Sea that lay on the road to China. But the Indian boy did not easily forget the monsters on the rocks, and he still looked about him with apprehensive glances.

It was not many leagues farther down the stream that the voyagers came to another of the fearful dangers of which the Peorias had warned them—a place in the river where, according to Indian legend, there lived a demon who devoured travelers and sucked them down into the troubled depths. As they approached the dreaded spot, they saw a fierce surging of the waters, driven with terrific force into a small cove. Rocks rose high out of the stream; and against these the river dashed mightily, tossing foam and spray into the air. Balked in their course, the waters paused, then hurled themselves down into a narrow channel.

To the Indian mind, which saw life and humanity, good spirits and bad, in all of nature, there was an evil spirit in these turbulent waters. It was with the eyes of his own race that the Indian boy now watched the high-tossed spray. But the two canoes passed by in safety and soon came to smoother waters.

Presently the voyagers drew near the broad mouth of the Ohio, in whose valley, raided from time to time by fierce tribes of the Iroquois, were the villages of the Shawnee Indians. Along the shores were canes and reeds that grew thick and high. Mosquitoes began to gather in swarms that made life miserable for the men as they toiled in the heat of the day. But following the way of the Indians of the Southern country, they raised above their canoes tents of canvas which sheltered them in part from both the mosquitoes and the burning sun.

So sailing, they came one day unexpectedly upon a group of armed Indians. Up rose Marquette and held high the pipe of peace, while Joliet and his comrades reached for their guns to be ready should an attack be made. This time, however, they were safe; for the Indians were only inviting them to come ashore and eat. The voyagers landed and were led to the village, where the Indians fed them upon buffalo meat and white plums.

It was evident that these Indians were acquainted with white men, and that they bought goods of traders from the East; for they had knives and guns and beads and cloth and hatchets and hoes, and even glass flasks for their powder. Venturesome Englishmen from the Atlantic Coast had perhaps sold them these things in exchange for furs. With the Spanish firmly settled in the Southwest, and the English—long-time enemies of France—pushing in from the East, it was high time that the French came down the river, if the Great Valley of the Mississippi were ever to be brought under the flag of France.

The Indians now told Marquette and Joliet that the great sea to the south was only ten days’ journey away; and so with renewed energy the band of eight set out once more in their canoes. Huge cottonwoods and elms now lined either shore, and bright-plumaged birds darted from limb to limb; while in the hidden prairies beyond could be heard the bellowing of wild buffalo.

As they drew near a village of Michigamea Indians, whose lodges were almost at the water’s edge, the voyagers heard the savage yells of warriors inciting one another to an attack. Soon they swarmed along the shore with bows and arrows, and with hatchets and great war clubs. In vain did Marquette hold up the calumet of peace. Downstream the Indians climbed into their long dugouts and pushed up to attack the strangers from below; while upstream other young warriors launched their wooden canoes and swept down the river with hoarse cries of battle. Hemmed in by the two war parties in boats, and with armed enemies howling along the river bank, death seemed very near to the Frenchmen. The warning words of the Peoria chief had told them of just such an end.

Perhaps the twinkling lights of the Canadian river towns and the smiling face of France had never seemed so far away as now in these untraveled stretches of the Great Valley. And the Indian lad—before him lay either death or captivity. In just such scenes as this he had passed from tribe to tribe. It may be that his young mind now carried him back to the village where the smoke rose from the lodges of his own people, where his own mother had unloosed the thongs that bound him to the cradle of his papoose days, and taught him to run over the green prairies and in the cool woods with the other lads, learning to draw a bow and trap wild creatures of the forest and roll about in the sun, naked and healthy and happy.

But this was not a time to think of other days. A handful of young braves threw themselves into the river to seize the small canoes of the white men; but finding the current too strong, they put back to the shore. One raised his club and hurled it at the black-robed priest. Whirling through the air it passed over the canoes and fell with a splash into the river. Nearer and nearer closed the net of enemies about them, until from every side bows began to bend and arrows drew back, tipped with death.