Water, plains, trees combined endlessly, like the pieces of a kaleidoscope, to confuse him in his search. Tonty was not at hand to take care of the colony while he groped for the lost river. He moved his wretched people from their camp, with all goods saved off the wreck in the bay, to a better site for a temporary fort, on rising ground. The carpenters proved good for nothing. La Salle himself planned buildings and marked out mortises on the logs. First a large house roofed with hides, and divided into apartments, was finished to shelter all. Separate houses were afterwards built for the women and girls, and barracks or rougher cells for the men. A little chapel was finally added. And when high-pointed palisades surrounded the whole, La Salle, perhaps thinking of his invincible rock on the Illinois and the faithfulness of his copper-handed lieutenant guarding it, called this outpost also Fort St. Louis. Cannon were mounted at the four corners of the large house. As the balls were lost, they were loaded with bullets in bags.
Behind, the prairies stretched away to forests. In front rolled the bay, with the restless ever-heaving motion of the Mexican Gulf. A delicious salty air, like the breath of perpetual spring, blew in, tingling the skin of the sulkiest adventurer with delight in this virgin world. Fierce northers must beat upon the colonists, and the languors of summer must in time follow; and they were homesick, always watching for sails. Yet they had no lack of food. Oysters were so plentiful in the bay that they could not wade without cutting their feet with the shells. Though the alligator pushed his ugly snout and ridgy back out of lagoons, and horned frogs frightened the children, and the rattlesnake was to be avoided where it lay coiled in the grass, game of all kinds abounded. Every man was obliged to hunt, and every woman and child to help smoke the meat. Even the priests took guns in their hands. Father Membré had brought some buffalo traditions from the Illinois country. He was of Father Hennepin's opinion that this wild creature might be trained to draw the plow, and he had faith that benevolence was concealed behind its wicked eyes.
As Father Membré stalked along the prairie with the hunters, his capote tucked up out of his way on its cord, one of the men shot a buffalo and it dropped. The buffaloes rarely fell at once, even when wounded to death, unless hit in the spine. Father Membré approached it curiously.
"Come back, Father!" shouted the hunters.
Father Membré touched it gently with his gun.
"Run, Father, run!" cried the hunters.
"It is dead," asserted Father Membré. "I will rest my gun across its carcass to steady my aim at the other buffaloes."
He knelt to rest his gun across its back.
The great beast heaved convulsively to its feet and made a dash at the Récollet. It sent him revolving heels over head. But Father Membré got up, and, spreading his capote in both hands, danced in front of the buffalo to head it off from escaping. At that, with a bellow, the shaggy creature charged over him across the prairie, dropping to its knees and dying before the frightened hunters could lift the friar from the ground.