His words fell upon the hatred of these fierce men like a match tossed into gunpowder. The five drew apart and held council. Too long had they borne with this young upstart. Night fell, but the conspirators did not sleep. Liotot rose quietly, while Moranget, Nika, and Saget were fast asleep. Hatchet in hand the surgeon stole over beside them and with a single blow split open the head of the hated Moranget. Nika and Saget he treated in the same fashion.
Meanwhile the other conspirators crouched with guns in hand ready to shoot if any one made resistance. Moranget was the only one to stir. Half sitting up he gasped and tried to speak. Then the murderers, to implicate the innocent De Marie, who had accompanied Moranget, forced him upon pain of death to finish the killing of his friend.
Murder had lifted its horrid head at last in the voyage that had known almost every other disaster. Could it stop there? The men took counsel together. What would be their chance of life when the news reached their leader? Their only safety now lay in going at once to the camp and killing both La Salle and Joutel. They started, but the river, swollen by a heavy rain, made them pause to construct a raft to transport their meat. While thus delayed they suddenly heard a gun fired as if in signal. Duhaut and his man L’Archevêque quickly crossed the river and a moment later they saw La Salle in the distance coming to seek them. Duhaut dropped quietly in the weeds to await his approach. La Salle, accompanied by the Recollet Douay, drew nearer, caught sight of L’Archevêque, and called out to him to know where Moranget was. Without removing his hat or otherwise saluting his astonished chief, L’Archevêque answered in an indifferent tone that he was along the river somewhere. La Salle started toward him with a rebuke. L’Archevêque answered with still more insolence. Then the crack of a gun came from the tall grass where Duhaut was hiding and La Salle, shot in the head, fell upon the ground. Without a word he died.
Douay, speechless, stood still in his tracks. The others came running up, Liotot in scornful exultation crying out over the body of La Salle: “There thou liest! Great Bashaw! There thou liest!”
Hiens, rough man that he was, perhaps already felt remorse—for La Salle had been good to him. Teissier the mariner, who had neither joined in the plot nor tried to prevent it, looked on while the men stripped the fallen leader and dragged his dead body into the bushes.
There they left him, their leader, a prey to the birds of the air and the wolves of the plains, unburied in the far corner of the Great Valley of whose waters and prairies and people he would never dream again.
CHAPTER XXX
WHITE AND RED SAVAGES
At the main camp on that fatal 19th of March, La Salle had left Joutel with four others—the Abbé, young Cavelier, Pierre Talon, and another young boy called Barthelemy. From time to time during the day Joutel had lighted fires on rising ground near the camp so that La Salle, if he lost his way, could return easily. He was alone on one of these little hills toward evening, looking down upon the horses grazing in the field near by, when some one came running up to him in great excitement. It was L’Archevêque, a man who had always been kindly disposed toward Joutel. There was very bad news to tell, he said, confused and almost beside himself.
“What is it?” asked Joutel in quick alarm.