Two months after this attack upon the fort, there came down the river a fleet of French canoes under command of Sieur de la Durantaye and containing sixty Frenchmen as reinforcements for the garrison upon the rock. Durantaye was a brave officer who had been sent out the year before by Governor La Barre to the posts on the Lake of the Illinois. Many a time he had found it necessary to make trips to Fort St. Louis to give assistance to the incapable Chevalier de Baugis. On this occasion there came with him from Green Bay the priest Allouez, who gathered up his black robe as he climbed the steep pathway to the fort.
Well did the Indians know this priest. Years before he had come to take the place of their beloved Father Marquette. And then on Christmas Eve, in the winter of their disaster, he had heard from the Miamis that La Salle was coming and had vanished like a spirit into the night. In the years that followed there had come from Green Bay, where he had gone, constant rumors that La Salle was their enemy. Now was this man come again to them when La Salle was gone and Tonty robbed of his power.
The visit of Durantaye was not alone to bring reinforcements, for he had with him an order from Governor La Barre commanding Tonty to leave the fort and go to Quebec. Tonty did not hesitate. Boisrondet, with a few faithful followers, remained in the fort, while the Man with the Iron Hand, taking leave of white and red friends, set off almost alone up the river toward distant Canada. He had spent nearly six years in the wilderness—faithful years in which he had followed his leader through ill fate and fortune. He had made warm friends with a dozen tribes and helped gather them together in the colony about Fort St. Louis. Now with a great bitterness he saw fort and colony turned over to those who, though French, were yet enemies of his friend La Salle.
Durantaye returned to the Lake, and De Baugis was left to do as he pleased. The Indians did not find in him the qualities they had admired in La Salle and Tonty. He knew little of their ways and perhaps cared less to learn about them. Trouble soon arose in the colony and he was powerless to check it. The Miamis, rising suddenly, fell upon the Illinois with great slaughter; thus making probable a disruption of the colony and the inevitable destruction of both nations by the Iroquois.
A year of incompetent rule went by. Then in the month of June, 1685, word came to the tribes that Tonty had come back. Down the river which he had ascended alone with sorrow in his heart, he now came in triumph, and climbing the path to the fort held out in his left hand an order to De Baugis to give him back the command of the fort and garrison.
La Salle in France had won the favor of the king. He had been given ships to make a voyage to the mouth of the Mississippi and men to man them, and guns and supplies and merchandise. All this had happened in the spring and summer of 1684. La Forest, one of La Salle’s lieutenants, was sent from Paris to Canada to take charge of Fort Frontenac, which La Barre had seized, and to give to Tonty a commission as captain and the governorship of Fort St. Louis. La Forest had gone out to Fort Frontenac that fall, but winter prevented Tonty from reaching his far western post until June of the following year.
After the disappointed De Baugis had left, Tonty set about conciliating the tribes. This was no easy task. But the Illinois and the Miamis finally listened to his persuasions, accepted his gifts, and agreed once more to live in peace.
To Tonty it must have seemed that the vision which he cherished and shared with La Salle was nearer realization than ever before. It was now almost a year since La Salle had set sail from France. Perhaps by this time he had already founded his fort at the mouth of the Mississippi and was coming up the Great River to join the followers who so eagerly waited for him at Fort St. Louis.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE LOST CHIEF