[II.]
THE FRIEND AND BROTHER
While Abbé Cavelier stood in the storehouse, Tonty, a few miles away, was setting his camp around a spring of sulphur water well known to the hunters of St. Louis. The spring boiled its white sand from unmeasured depths at the root of an oak, and spread a pool which slipped over its barrier in a thin stream to the Illinois.
Though so near his fortress, Tonty and Greysolon du Lhut, fresh from their victorious campaign with the governor of New France against the Iroquois, thought it not best to expose their long array of canoes in darkness on the river. They had with them[19] women and children,—fragments of families, going under their escort to join the colony at Fort St. Louis.
Du Lhut’s army of Indians from the upper lakes had returned directly to their own villages to celebrate the victory; but that unwearied rover himself, with a few followers, had dragged his gouty limbs across portages to the Illinois, to sojourn longer with Tonty.
Their camp was some distance from the river, up an alluvial slope of the north shore. Opposite, a line of cliffs, against which the Illinois washes for miles, caught the eye through darkness by its sandy glint; and not far away, on the north side of the river, that long ridge known as Buffalo Rock made a mass of gloom.
Dependent and unarmed colonists were placed in the centre of the camp. Tonty himself, with his usual care on this journey, had helped to pitch a tent of blankets and freshly cut poles for Mademoiselle Barbe Cavelier and the officer’s wife, who clung to her in the character of guardian. The other immigrants understood and took pleasure in this small temporary home, built nightly for a girl whose proud silence among them they forgave as the caprice of beauty. The wife of the officer Bellefontaine, on her part, rewarded Tonty by attaching her ceaseless presence to Barbe. She was a timid woman, very small-eyed and silent, who took refuge in Barbe’s larger shadow, and found it convenient for an under-sized duenna whose husband was so far in the wilds.
Mademoiselle Cavelier was going to Fort St. Louis at the first opportunity since her uncle La Salle’s request, made three years before.
At this time it was not known whether La Salle had succeeded or failed in his last enterprise. He had again convinced the king. His seigniories and forts were restored to him, and governor’s agents and associates driven out of his possessions. He had sailed from France with a fleet of ships, carrying a large colony to plant at the Mississippi’s mouth. His brother the Abbé Cavelier, two nephews, priests, artisans, young men, and families were in his company, which altogether numbered over four hundred people.