CHAPTER XIV.

1680.

HARDIHOOD OF LA SALLE.

The Winter Journey.--The Deserted Town.--Starved Rock.--Lake

Michigan.--The Wilderness.--War Parties.--La Salle's Men give

out.--Ill Tidings.--Mutiny.--Chastisement of the Mutineers.

La Salle well knew what was before him, and nothing but necessity

spurred him to this desperate journey. He says that he could trust

nobody else to go in his stead, and that unless the articles lost in the

"Griffin" were replaced without delay, the expedition would be retarded

a full year, and he and his associates consumed by its expenses.

"Therefore," he writes to one of them, "though the thaws of approaching

spring greatly increased the difficulty of the way, interrupted as it

was everywhere by marshes and rivers, to say nothing of the length of

the journey, which is about five hundred leagues in a direct line, and

the danger of meeting Indians of four or five different nations through

whose country we were to pass, as well as an Iroquois army which we knew

was coming that way; though we must suffer all the time from hunger;

sleep on the open ground, and often without food; watch by night and

march by day, loaded with baggage, such as blanket, clothing, kettle,

hatchet, gun, powder, lead, and skins to make moccasins; sometimes

pushing through thickets, sometimes climbing rocks covered with ice and

snow, sometimes wading whole days through marshes where the water was

waist-deep or even more, at a season when the snow was not entirely

melted,--though I knew all this, it did not prevent me from resolving to

go on foot to Fort Frontenac, to learn for myself what had become of my

vessel, and bring back the things we needed."[163]

The winter had been a severe one; and when, an hour after leaving the

fort, he and his companions reached the still water of Peoria Lake, they

found it sheeted with ice from shore to shore. They carried their canoes

up the bank, made two rude sledges, placed the light vessels upon them,

and dragged them to the upper end of the lake, where they encamped. In

the morning they found the river still covered with ice, too weak to

bear them and too strong to permit them to break a way for the canoes.

They spent the whole day in carrying them through the woods, toiling

knee-deep in saturated snow. Rain fell in floods, and they took shelter

at night in a deserted Indian hut.

In the morning, the third of March, they dragged their canoes half a

league farther; then launched them, and, breaking the ice with clubs and

hatchets, forced their way slowly up the stream. Again their progress

was barred, and again they took to the woods, toiling onward till a

tempest of moist, half-liquid snow forced them to bivouac for the night.

A sharp frost followed, and in the morning the white waste around them

was glazed with a dazzling crust. Now, for the first time, they could

use their snow-shoes. Bending to their work, dragging their canoes,

which glided smoothly over the polished surface, they journeyed on hour

after hour and league after league, till they reached at length the

great town of the Illinois, still void of its inhabitants.[164]

[Sidenote: THE DESERTED TOWN.]

It was a desolate and lonely scene,--the river gliding dark and cold

between its banks of rushes; the empty lodges, covered with crusted

snow; the vast white meadows; the distant cliffs, bearded with shining

icicles; and the hills wrapped in forests, which glittered from afar

with the icy incrustations that cased each frozen twig. Yet there was

life in the savage landscape. The men saw buffalo wading in the snow,

and they killed one of them. More than this: they discovered the tracks

of moccasins. They cut rushes by the edge of the river, piled them on

the bank, and set them on fire, that the smoke might attract the eyes of

savages roaming near.

On the following day, while the hunters were smoking the meat of the

buffalo, La Salle went out to reconnoitre, and presently met three

Indians, one of whom proved to be Chassagoac, the principal chief of the

Illinois.[165] La Salle brought them to his bivouac, feasted them, gave

them a red blanket, a kettle, and some knives and hatchets, made friends

with them, promised to restrain the Iroquois from attacking them, told

them that he was on his way to the settlements to bring arms and

ammunition to defend them against their enemies, and, as the result of

these advances, gained from the chief a promise that he would send

provisions to Tonty's party at Fort Crèvecoeur.

After several days spent at the deserted town, La Salle prepared to

resume his journey. Before his departure, his attention was attracted to

the remarkable cliff of yellow sandstone, now called Starved Rock, a

mile or more above the village,--a natural fortress, which a score of

resolute white men might make good against a host of savages; and he

soon afterwards sent Tonty an order to examine it, and make it his

stronghold in case of need.[166]

On the fifteenth the party set out again, carried their canoes along

the bank of the river as far as the rapids above Ottawa, then launched

them and pushed their way upward, battling with the floating ice, which,

loosened by a warm rain, drove down the swollen current in sheets. On

the eighteenth they reached a point some miles below the site of Joliet,

and here found the river once more completely closed. Despairing of

farther progress by water, they hid their canoes on an island, and

struck across the country for Lake Michigan.

[Sidenote: LA SALLE'S JOURNEY.]

It was the worst of all seasons for such a journey. The nights were

cold, but the sun was warm at noon, and the half-thawed prairie was one

vast tract of mud, water, and discolored, half-liquid snow. On the

twenty-second they crossed marshes and inundated meadows, wading to the

knee, till at noon they were stopped by a river, perhaps the Calumet.

They made a raft of hard-wood timber, for there was no other, and shoved

themselves across. On the next day they could see Lake Michigan dimly

glimmering beyond the waste of woods; and, after crossing three swollen

streams, they reached it at evening. On the twenty-fourth they followed

its shore, till, at nightfall, they arrived at the fort which they had

built in the autumn at the mouth of the St. Joseph. Here La Salle found

Chapelle and Leblanc, the two men whom he had sent from hence to

Michilimackinac, in search of the "Griffin."[167] They reported that

they had made the circuit of the lake, and had neither seen her nor

heard tidings of her. Assured of her fate, he ordered them to rejoin

Tonty at Fort Crèvecoeur; while he pushed onward with his party

through the unknown wild of Southern Michigan.

"The rain," says La Salle, "which lasted all day, and the raft we were

obliged to make to cross the river, stopped us till noon of the

twenty-fifth, when we continued our march through the woods, which was

so interlaced with thorns and brambles that in two days and a half our

clothes were all torn, and our faces so covered with blood that we

hardly knew each other. On the twenty-eighth we found the woods more

open, and began to fare better, meeting a good deal of game, which after

this rarely failed us; so that we no longer carried provisions with us,

but made a meal of roast meat wherever we happened to kill a deer, bear,

or turkey. These are the choicest feasts on a journey like this; and

till now we had generally gone without them, so that we had often walked

all day without breakfast.

[Sidenote: INDIAN ALARMS.]

"The Indians do not hunt in this region, which is debatable ground

between five or six nations who are at war, and, being afraid of each

other, do not venture into these parts except to surprise each other,

and always with the greatest precaution and all possible secrecy. The

reports of our guns and the carcasses of the animals we killed soon led

some of them to find our trail. In fact, on the evening of the

twenty-eighth, having made our fire by the edge of a prairie, we were

surrounded by them; but as the man on guard waked us, and we posted

ourselves behind trees with our guns, these savages, who are called

Wapoos, took us for Iroquois, and thinking that there must be a great

many of us because we did not travel secretly, as they do when in small

bands, they ran off without shooting their arrows, and gave the alarm to

their comrades, so that we were two days without meeting anybody."

La Salle guessed the cause of their fright; and, in order to confirm

their delusion, he drew with charcoal, on the trunks of trees from which

he had stripped the bark, the usual marks of an Iroquois war-party, with

signs for prisoners and for scalps, after the custom of those dreaded

warriors. This ingenious artifice, as will soon appear, was near proving

the destruction of the whole party. He also set fire to the dry grass of

the prairies over which he and his men had just passed, thus destroying

the traces of their passage. "We practised this device every night, and

it answered very well so long as we were passing over an open country;

but on the thirtieth we got into great marshes, flooded by the thaws,

and were obliged to cross them in mud or water up to the waist; so that

our tracks betrayed us to a band of Mascoutins who were out after

Iroquois. They followed us through these marshes during the three days

we were crossing them; but we made no fire at night, contenting

ourselves with taking off our wet clothes and wrapping ourselves in our

blankets on some dry knoll, where we slept till morning. At last, on

the night of the second of April, there came a hard frost, and our

clothes, which were drenched when we took them off, froze stiff as

sticks, so that we could not put them on in the morning without making a

fire to thaw them. The fire betrayed us to the Indians, who were

encamped across the marsh; and they ran towards us with loud cries, till

they were stopped halfway by a stream so deep that they could not get

over, the ice which had formed in the night not being strong enough to

bear them. We went to meet them, within gun-shot; and whether our

fire-arms frightened them, or whether they thought us more numerous than

we were, or whether they really meant us no harm, they called out, in

the Illinois language, that they had taken us for Iroquois, but now saw

that we were friends and brothers; whereupon, they went off as they

came, and we kept on our way till the fourth, when two of my men fell

ill and could not walk."

In this emergency, La Salle went in search of some watercourse by which

they might reach Lake Erie, and soon came upon a small river, which was

probably the Huron. Here, while the sick men rested, their companions

made a canoe. There were no birch-trees; and they were forced to use

elm-bark, which at that early season would not slip freely from the wood

until they loosened it with hot water. Their canoe being made, they

embarked in it, and for a time floated prosperously down the stream,

when at length the way was barred by a matted barricade of trees fallen

across the water. The sick men could now walk again, and, pushing

eastward through the forest, the party soon reached the banks of the

Detroit.

[Sidenote: THE JOURNEY'S END.]

La Salle directed two of the men to make a canoe, and go to

Michilimackinac, the nearest harborage. With the remaining two, he

crossed the Detroit on a raft, and, striking a direct line across the

country, reached Lake Erie not far from Point Pelée. Snow, sleet, and

rain pelted them with little intermission: and when, after a walk of

about thirty miles, they gained the lake, the Mohegan and one of the

Frenchmen were attacked with fever and spitting of blood. Only one man

now remained in health. With his aid, La Salle made another canoe, and,

embarking the invalids, pushed for Niagara. It was Easter Monday when

they landed at a cabin of logs above the cataract, probably on the spot

where the "Griffin" was built. Here several of La Salle's men had been

left the year before, and here they still remained. They told him woful

news. Not only had he lost the "Griffin," and her lading of ten thousand

crowns in value, but a ship from France, freighted with his goods,

valued at more than twenty-two thousand livres, had been totally wrecked

at the mouth of the St. Lawrence; and of twenty hired men on their way

from Europe to join him, some had been detained by his enemy, the

Intendant Duchesneau, while all but four of the remainder, being told

that he was dead, had found means to return home.

His three followers were all unfit for travel: he alone retained his

strength and spirit. Taking with him three fresh men at Niagara, he

resumed his journey, and on the sixth of May descried, looming through

floods of rain, the familiar shores of his seigniory and the bastioned

walls of Fort Frontenac. During sixty-five days he had toiled almost

incessantly, travelling, by the course he took, about a thousand miles

through a country beset with every form of peril and obstruction,--"the

most arduous journey," says the chronicler, "ever made by Frenchmen in

America."

Such was Cavelier de la Salle. In him, an unconquerable mind held at its

service a frame of iron, and tasked it to the utmost of its endurance.

The pioneer of western pioneers was no rude son of toil, but a man of

thought, trained amid arts and letters.[168] He had reached his goal;

but for him there was neither rest nor peace. Man and Nature seemed in

arms against him. His agents had plundered him; his creditors had seized

his property; and several of his canoes, richly laden, had been lost in

the rapids of the St. Lawrence.[169] He hastened to Montreal, where his

sudden advent caused great astonishment; and where, despite his crippled

resources and damaged credit, he succeeded, within a week, in gaining

the supplies which he required and the needful succors for the forlorn

band on the Illinois. He had returned to Fort Frontenac, and was on the

point of embarking for their relief, when a blow fell upon him more

disheartening than any that had preceded.

[Sidenote: THE MUTINEERS.]

On the twenty-second of July, two _voyageurs_, Messier and Laurent, came

to him with a letter from Tonty, who wrote that soon after La Salle's

departure nearly all the men had deserted, after destroying Fort

Crèvecoeur, plundering the magazine, and throwing into the river all

the arms, goods, and stores which they could not carry off. The

messengers who brought this letter were speedily followed by two of the

_habitants_ of Fort Frontenac, who had been trading on the lakes, and

who, with a fidelity which the unhappy La Salle rarely knew how to

inspire, had travelled day and night to bring him their tidings. They

reported that they had met the deserters, and that, having been

reinforced by recruits gained at Michilimackinac and Niagara, they now

numbered twenty men.[170] They had destroyed the fort on the St.

Joseph, seized a quantity of furs belonging to La Salle at

Michilimackinac, and plundered the magazine at Niagara. Here they had

separated, eight of them coasting the south side of Lake Ontario to find

harborage at Albany, a common refuge at that time of this class of

scoundrels; while the remaining twelve, in three canoes, made for Fort

Frontenac along the north shore, intending to kill La Salle as the

surest means of escaping punishment.

[Sidenote: CHASTISEMENT.]

He lost no time in lamentation. Of the few men at his command he chose

nine of the trustiest, embarked with them in canoes, and went to meet

the marauders. After passing the Bay of Quinté, he took his station with

five of his party at a point of land suited to his purpose, and detached

the remaining four to keep watch. In the morning, two canoes were

discovered approaching without suspicion, one of them far in advance of

the other. As the foremost drew near, La Salle's canoe darted out from

under the leafy shore,--two of the men handling the paddles, while he,

with the remaining two, levelled their guns at the deserters, and called

on them to surrender. Astonished and dismayed, they yielded at once;

while two more, who were in the second canoe, hastened to follow their

example. La Salle now returned to the fort with his prisoners, placed

them in custody, and again set forth. He met the third canoe upon the

lake at about six o'clock in the evening. His men vainly plied their

paddles in pursuit. The mutineers reached the shore, took post among

rocks and trees, levelled their guns, and showed fight. Four of La

Salle's men made a circuit to gain their rear and dislodge them, on

which they stole back to their canoe and tried to escape in the

darkness. They were pursued, and summoned to yield; but they replied by

aiming their guns at their pursuers, who instantly gave them a volley,

killed two of them, and captured the remaining three. Like their

companions, they were placed in custody at the fort, to await the

arrival of Count Frontenac.[171]

FOOTNOTES:

[163] _Lettre de La Salle à un de ses associés_ (Thouret?), _29 Sept.,

1680_ (Margry, ii. 50).

[164] Membré says that he was in the town at the time; but this could

hardly have been the case. He was, in all probability, among the

Illinois, in their camp near Fort Crèvecoeur.

[165] The same whom Hennepin calls Chassagouasse. He was brother of the

chief, Nicanopé, who, in his absence, had feasted the French on the day

after the nocturnal council with Monso. Chassagoac was afterwards

baptized by Membré or Ribourde, but soon relapsed into the superstitions

of his people, and died, as the former tells us, "doubly a child of

perdition." See Le Clerc, ii. 181.

[166] Tonty, _Mémoire_. The order was sent by two Frenchmen, whom La

Salle met on Lake Michigan.

[167] _Déclaration de Moyse Hillaret; Relation des Découvertes._

[168] A Rocky Mountain trapper, being complimented on the hardihood of

himself and his companions, once said to the writer, "That's so; but a

gentleman of the right sort will stand hardship better than anybody

else." The history of Arctic and African travel and the military records

of all time are a standing evidence that a trained and developed mind is

not the enemy, but the active and powerful ally, of constitutional

hardihood. The culture that enervates instead of strengthening is always

a false or a partial one.

[169] Zenobe Membré in Le Clerc, ii. 202.

[170] When La Salle was at Niagara, in April, he had ordered Dautray,

the best of the men who had accompanied him from the Illinois, to return

thither as soon as he was able. Four men from Niagara were to go with

him and he was to rejoin Tonty with such supplies as that post could

furnish. Dautray set out accordingly, but was met on the lakes by the

deserters, who told him that Tonty was dead, and seduced his men.

(_Relation des Découvertes._) Dautray himself seems to have remained

true; at least, he was in La Salle's service immediately after, and was

one of his most trusted followers. He was of good birth, being the son

of Jean Bourdon, a conspicuous personage in the early period of the

colony; and his name appears on official records as Jean Bourdon, Sieur

d'Autray.

[171] La Salle's long letter, written apparently to his associate

Thouret, and dated 29 Sept., 1680, is the chief authority for the above.

The greater part of this letter is incorporated, almost verbatim, in the

official narrative called _Relation des Découvertes_. Hennepin, Membré,

and Tonty also speak of the journey from Fort Crèvecoeur. The death of

the two mutineers was used by La Salle's enemies as the basis of a

charge of murder.