The Man with the Iron Hand

by John Carl Parish

With a cry of rage the whole force of the Illinois breaks again into a charge, furious to avenge such treachery. The young Boisrondet and Renault are in the lead, their hair flowing back in their speed, their set faces full of the lust of battle and revenge. The twisting, howling figures of five hundred Indians hurl themselves upon the ranks of the enemy. Then like fiends they fight. The report of the Iroquois guns is like the cracking of twigs in the forest to the new-found courage of the Illinois. Their war cries rise above it sharp and shrill. Swift arrows fly like driving hail. Heavy war clubs crash on Iroquois shield or on painted head and body. Even the vaunted Iroquois cannot hold against them. Their left side weakens, then yields, and gives back for half a league across the meadow.

Then goes up the sudden cry that Tonty is alive. Out of the press of battling foes he comes motioning them to hold. Gradually the din and the tumult cease. The Illinois withdraw and count their losses. Tonty reaches them, weak with the loss of blood from a gaping wound in his side, but he carries in his hand a wampum peace offering from the Iroquois.

CHAPTER XIV

THE SCATTERING OF THE TRIBES

Throughout the fight Tonty’s life hung upon a thread. An impetuous Onondaga had stabbed him in the side, but fortunately the knife had glanced from a rib. Another Indian seized him by the hair; and a third raised his hat upon a gun. Then one of the chiefs recognized him as a white man and intervened. He was carried into the midst of the camp, where the chiefs gathered about him and heard his plea for peace. The Illinois, said Tonty, were just as much the friends of the governor of Canada as were the Iroquois. Why should the Iroquois make war upon them?

It was an unquiet parley. Behind Tonty stood an Indian warrior with ready knife; and now and then as they talked he wound his fingers in the white man’s hair and raised his black locks as if to scalp him. Outside of the circle the fight went on. Then came the report that Iroquois men were killed and wounded and that the left side was yielding. Dismayed, the chiefs asked their white captive how many men were in the fight. Tonty, seeing a chance to prevent hostilities, replied that there were twelve hundred Illinois and that fifty Frenchmen were fighting with them. Overcome with consternation at these figures, the chiefs hastened to give Tonty the present of wampum and beg him to make peace for the Iroquois.

The Illinois with their wounded white leader and his two men turned back to the village. A league from home they came upon Father Membré hurrying out to meet them. The sound of guns had brought him from his cabin in the fields back of the town. They crossed the river together, and Tonty was glad enough to lie down in one of the lodges and let the priest and young men tend his wound.

Scarcely had the Illinois reached their lodges when, looking back, they saw little groups of Iroquois on the other side of the river. A few of these soon found means of crossing, and they hovered near the village in a pretense of seeking food. But the Illinois, who were not children in the art of Indian warfare, were well aware of the ways of the treacherous Iroquois, and they watched these straggling bands with gloomy foreboding.

By a magnificent sally the Illinois had daunted their enemy, and Tonty’s exaggeration of their numbers had completed the impression of their power in the minds of the Iroquois. But the Illinois well knew that they were no match for the Iroquois with their abundance of arms and ammunition and their allies, the Miamis. Sooner or later the Iroquois would learn the true numbers of the villagers. Then the fierce warriors of the Five Nations would harry them until they found an opportunity to crush them out of existence. Massacres, tortures, and burnings could be their only possible end if they stayed in the village. After their warriors were slain, what of the women and children, anxiously waiting in the secluded refuge down the river?

Tonty and his men were probably safe, for the Iroquois had too much fear of the French in Canada to harm them without great provocation. But the Illinois were not safe. So they deserted their village, took to their pirogues, and passed downstream to join their wives and old men.