The Man with the Iron Hand

by John Carl Parish

At the same instant came the war cries of the Quinipissas on all sides of them. Guns flashed and arrows flew in the spreading light. When the sun came up and the Quinipissas looked upon their slain warriors they turned and fled, with the whites after them until recalled by La Salle. The New England Indians came excitedly back to camp waving scalps which they had taken from the enemy.

Later in the morning La Salle with half of his men went to the edge of the village and broke up the Indians’ pirogues under their very eyes. Then with no one hurt, the party of explorers put off upstream in their canoes. Coming again to the country of the Coroas they were welcomed to the village, but there was a strange new feeling in the air. The French saw Quinipissas among them, and learned that they were allies. The young Coroa captive soon had told the story of the battle to his people. When the voyagers sat down to eat they found themselves surrounded by more than a thousand warriors. They ate with their arms within quick reach, for no one knew when massacre might be attempted. Taking counsel, however, the Indians finally allowed their visitors to proceed up the Mississippi in peace.

When they reached the village of the Taensas, the chief in his white cloak was as dignified and kind as ever, and rejoiced greatly at the scalps which the Mohegans showed him. Again they passed the villages of the Arkansas. And now La Salle fell sick—so seriously that, in alarm lest he should not reach Canada, he sent Tonty ahead to carry the good news of the trip to the French settlements. Tonty with four men hurried northward. He had passed the Ohio and was drawing near the Illinois Valley when one day thirty Illinois warriors burst out of the woods with drawn bows, taking the party for Iroquois. But just in time one warrior recognized Tonty and cried out, “It is my comrade! They are Frenchmen!” After a short stop at the Tamaroa village, Tonty pushed on to the white settlements.

By the time La Salle, slowly recovering from his illness, joined Tonty at Mackinac, word had come to the white men about the Lakes that the cross and the arms of France had been raised at the mouth of the Mississippi. And the Illinois tribes in the upper valley, still afraid to return to their deserted homes, took heart when they heard of the safe return of La Salle and the Man with the Iron Hand from their long trip to the sea. For they had not forgotten La Salle’s promise to build a fort to protect them from the Iroquois, and make it safe for them to return to the valley they had lost.

CHAPTER XXII

THE GATHERING OF THE TRIBES

On the south bank of the river Illinois, a mile or more above the plain where lay the deserted village of the Kaskaskias, a great rock rose sheer from the water to a height of over a hundred feet. Three sides of the rock were like the walls of a mediæval castle. At the fourth side by a rugged pathway one might climb laboriously from behind to the level top where oaks and cedars grew.

In the month of January, 1683, this rock was the scene of busy doings. On the scant acre of ground upon its summit, Frenchmen had felled trees and were building cabins and storehouses and palisaded walls and erecting a fortification about the whole area. Up the steep pathway other Frenchmen and stalwart Indians were dragging timbers to aid in the construction of fort and dwellings. Moving here and there among the men was the dominant figure of La Salle; and yonder were the iron-handed Tonty and his friend Boisrondet. Many of the Frenchmen had been with La Salle on his trip to the Gulf the year before; and the busy Indians were his faithful band of Mohegans and Abenakis.

La Salle had reached Mackinac after his arduous trip to the sea, with little strength left, but with many plans for the future. He had explored the river to the mouth. It now remained for him to make use of the Great Valley. His enemies, the rich merchants of Quebec and Montreal, had become so bitter in their opposition to him that he knew it would be difficult to carry out his plans from Canada as a base. And so he determined to cut loose as soon as possible from the valley of the St. Lawrence and bring his supplies and men by sea from France to the mouth of the Mississippi, thence up the river to the trading-posts which he would found among the tribes along its banks.

Such was the vision that rose before La Salle day and night—a vision of the long river valley held together by a chain of forts and depots for the fur trade, of friendly Indians coming with their canoes laden with furs to exchange with the French for merchandise, of French settlements growing up in the wilderness, of a great post at the mouth of the river, and of swift-sailing ships plying between the Gulf and far-away France.