The massacre of 1780 was still fresh enough in the memory of St. Louis folk to make this seem no improbable tale, and the utmost confusion ensued. Some of the young men, with Josef Papin and Gabriel Cerré at their head, were for going at once to our rescue; but the maidens implored, and Yorke averred it was too late, and reported the savages in such numbers as would make such an undertaking only foolhardy. (And by this you must not judge Yorke a villain and a coward; he would have been the first to volunteer and the loudest to urge on the others, but he had heard Fatima's hoofs behind him, and knew we were safe, and, rascal that he was, could not resist his practical joke nor his negro love of producing a great effect.)
Into this wild pandemonium of women screaming unintelligible cries to each other as they hastily got together their belongings and packed them into charrettes and saddle-bags, amid sobbings and wailings, and men shouting hoarsely to mustang and pony as they struggled with bit and bridle, mademoiselle and I rode; and their joy at seeing us alive, and our hair still on our heads, knew no bounds.
I told them the true state of the case—that there were not more than a dozen or twenty of the savages at the most, and I hardly thought the chevalier would bring them down upon us. Yet, knowing that he might be in a mood for risking everything to recapture mademoiselle, I recommended that the men form themselves into two bands to ride in the front and in the rear, with the maidens between the two, and to start at once. We could go no faster, of course, than the charrettes could go, and the savages could easily overtake us if they desired; but I did not believe they would dare, for our numbers were greater than theirs, and the young men were all well armed.
Mademoiselle had recovered from her fainting, but was still white and weak. And because I did not believe she was able to sit La Bette, I recommended that she ride in Josef Papin's charrette with Mademoiselle Chouteau and let Josef ride her horse. We two, young Papin and I, brought up the rear; and I did not see mademoiselle again except once, for a moment, when we were crossing La Petite Rivière, and I rode up by her side to see that the charrette went steadily through the water. Her head was on Mademoiselle Chouteau's shoulder, who was supporting her with her arm. Her eyes were closed, and Mademoiselle Chouteau whispered to me, "She is asleep!" but at that she opened her eyes quickly and looked up at me. She tried to smile, but I think the terror of it all was still strongly with her. She said:
"I have not thanked you, monsieur; but I know I owe you my liberty, if not my life, and I am not ungrateful."
It was very sweetly said, but there was a horrible fear at my heart that she would rather have been captured by the redskins, and gone away with the Chevalier Le Moyne, than to have been rescued by me.
Just at the stockade we met a party of horsemen. Dr. Saugrain and my captain were in the lead with Black Hawk, who had reported Red Jean with a band of Osages lurking in the woods, and they were on their way to clear them out, lest they molest the picnic or the village. Amid a babble of excitement, every one trying to talk at once, our tale was told. And as Dr. Saugrain and my captain thought it was best to go on and try to capture the chevalier and his band, and as our escort was no longer needed for the maidens, I turned my horse and rode back with them to find the chevalier.
I confess it would have done me good to bring him in a captive, but I was doomed to disappointment. We scoured the woods, and the only traces we found of him and his band were the prints of horses' hoofs going south,—a dozen horses, I should think,—and, just where Rock Spring bubbles up in a silver fountain, a torn and bloody lace handkerchief. I gave the good doctor a full account of the conversation I had listened to, and he ground his teeth with rage at the chevalier's duplicity. He was much touched at Pelagie's chivalrous defense of him; yet, as delicately as I could, I tried to tell him that at the very last I feared the chevalier had succeeded in insinuating some seeds of doubt and suspicion in mademoiselle's mind. The doctor and my captain both agreed that it was time to tell Pelagie the full truth of the matter. She should know all about herself and her expectations, and who were her friends and who her foes.
I was curious to see what effect the revelation would have upon her; or it could hardly be called a revelation, since the chevalier had already revealed it—rather the confirmation of his tale. But in that, too, I was doomed to disappointment. She was ill for several days and confined to her room,—the effect of the excitement she had passed through,—and before she was well enough to be about again, my captain and I had set off, with Black Hawk as guide and Yorke as factotum, to make a visit to Daniel Boone at his home on the Missouri River.
We found the grand old man as happy as a child in the beautiful home he had at last made for himself and his family at the very outposts of civilization. We were gone four weeks, exploring the woods and mountains and rolling prairies of the beautiful country, and coming home on a great flatboat down the swiftly rolling Missouri, past Fort Bellefontaine, where the Missouri empties into the Mississippi (where we were royally entertained by the Spanish commandant), and so at last by the Mississippi back to St. Louis.