He rested his knuckles on the box and looked down. A Norman follower of the Caveliers, he had done La Salle good service, but between the Abbé and him lay a reason for silence.
“Joutel, what are you writing there?”—Page 169.
“Tonty may reach the Rock at any time,”[18] complained the Abbé to the floor, though his voice must reach Joutel’s ears. “There is nothing I dread more than meeting Tonty.”
“We can leave the Rock before Monsieur de Tonty arrives,” said Joutel, repeating a suggestion he had made many times.
“Certainly, without the goods my brother would have him deliver to me, without a canoe or any provision whatever for our journey!”
“They say here that Monsieur de Tonty led only two hundred Indians and fifty Frenchmen to aid the new governor in his war against the Iroquois,” observed Joutel. “He may not come back at all.”
“I have thought of that,” the Abbé mused. “If Tonty be dead we are indeed wasting our time here, when we ought to be well on our way to Quebec, to say naught of the voyage to France. But this fellow in charge of the Rock refuses to honor my demands without more authority.”
“He received us most kindly, and we have been his guests a month,” said Joutel.