But in the country between the mouth of the Arkansas and the mouth of the Mississippi skulked fierce and murderous tribes; while not far away were the Spaniards. Should they fall into the hands of enemies and lose their lives, who would tell to France the story of their marvelous journeyings? Their beloved nation would lose all knowledge of their expedition and therefore all claim to the Great Valley by right of their exploration. Then, too, there seemed little more to be learned in traveling the balance of the way to the mouth. Joliet was anxious to report to his government the story of the expedition, and Marquette was full of eagerness to tell his brother priests of the Indians whom he had met and the great work that lay open to their missionary efforts.
As a matter of fact, the voyagers were many a long day’s journey from the river’s mouth. But happy in the thought that they were nearly there, Joliet and the priest at last determined to turn back upstream and carry to New France the wonderful tale of their pioneer voyage down the great untraveled river.
CHAPTER IV
THE CAPTIVE RELEASED
It was about the middle of July, 1673, when the Arkansas Indians saw the band of white men leave their village to start out upon the return voyage. The weeks that followed their departure from the Arkansas town were full of toil for the voyagers; for now in the heat of summer they must paddle against the current of the greatest of American rivers. At length, coming to the mouth of the Illinois and believing that it offered a shorter route than the one by which they had come, they turned into its waters and paddled up its smooth stream toward the Lake.
In the course of this journey up the Illinois River they came one day, with great surprise, to a village in whose lodges lived the same Peoria Indians whom they had last seen on the other side of the Mississippi, in the town on the bank of the Iowa River. The Peorias, too, were surprised to see the seven white men and the Indian boy come paddling up the stream.
Here the tired voyagers were welcomed with such hospitality that they lingered for three days in the village. The Indian boy renewed old acquaintances, while Marquette passed from lodge to lodge, telling the Indians of the God of the French who had guarded them in their long journey and protected them from pestilence and the disasters of the river, and from torture and murder by hostile tribes of Indians. The Peorias in turn told the priest of their brother tribes along the Illinois River and of the wars they waged together against the Sacs and Foxes of the North and the bands of Iroquois from the East. But as they looked into the face of the priest, they saw lines of suffering and sickness, and they knew that he had not borne with ease the long and arduous trip.
When the voyagers made ready to depart, the Indians gathered at the river bank to bid them good-bye. As they were about to embark, some Indians brought to the edge of the stream a sick child and asked Father Marquette to baptize it. With great joy the priest complied, for it was the first and, indeed, the only baptism on the whole summer’s voyage. A few minutes later the little child died.
The canoes were then pushed into the stream, the men dipped their paddles, and, rounding a point of land a short distance up the stream, disappeared from view. The group of Indians turned back to the village, bearing the body of the dead child. They wrapped it tenderly in the skins of wild animals and laid it away on a scaffold of poles high above the reach of prowling wolves.