“Where have you lodged these men?” inquired Le Ber.
The officer pointed to the barrack end of the structure made of hewed timbers. The wider portion intended for commandant’s headquarters was built of stone, with Norman eaves and windows. Near the barracks stood a guardhouse. The bakery was at the opposite side of the gateway, and beyond it was the mill. La Salle had founded well this stronghold in the wilderness. Walls of hewed stone enclosed three sides, nine small cannon being mounted thereon.[8] Palisades were the defence on the water side. Fort Frontenac was built with four bastions. In two of these bastions were vaulted towers which served as magazines for ammunition.[9] A well was dug within the walls.
“Have you no empty rooms in the officers’ quarters?”
The moon threw silhouette palisades on the ground, and made all these buildings cut blocks of shadow. There was a stir of evening wind in the forest all around.
“The men are in the barracks. But Sieur de la Salle is in the officers’ house.”
“May I ask you, Commandant,” demanded Le Ber, “where you propose to lodge my daughter whom I have brought through the perils of the rapids, and cannot now return with?”
“Mademoiselle le Ber is most welcome to my own apartment, monsieur, and I will myself come downstairs.”
“One near mine for yourself, monsieur. But with the Abbé and his niece and the boy and La Salle and Father Hennepin, to say no more, can we have many empty rooms? Father Hennepin is lodged downstairs, but La Salle hath his old room overlooking the river.”
“How does he appear, Commandant?”
“Worn in his garb and very thin visaged, but unmoved by his misfortunes as a man of rock. Any one else would be prostrate and hopeless.”