Englishmen and became the promoters of the Hudson Bay Company, which
had immense influence in the early times and which to-day still buys
furs of the Indians and sells them in the courts of kings.
Other companies were organized and the industry thrived. St. Louis on
the Mississippi finally came to be the center of a fur trade carrying
on one of those big businesses which are the pride of the United States.
Private speculators went into the trade with zest. Almost any person
who had capital enough to buy a canoe, arm and munitions, supplies,
cutlery and beads, would outfit a _coureur de bois_ and encourage him
to try his luck.
Almost half of these _voyageurs_ perished in the wilderness. Romance,
adventure, freedom, license, and wealth were the bait to lure them.
Panthers, Indians, snakes, malaria, and rapids were the traps that
caught them.
Accau liked the trader's life and as long as he could stay by the
fruits of this Sioux hunt he meant to do so. His employer, the Sieur La
Salle, expected the buffalo herds to pay the expenses of settling and
developing the valley of the Great River. Accau kept near the front of
the chase, and because they were without definite plans it was not hard
to lead the Sioux with more and more rapidity down the banks of the
river in the direction the friar and Anthony had taken and toward the
spot where the traders might appear.
A pageant now took possession of the upper Mississippi. As it passed
the hidden creatures of the wild watched with bright, frightened eyes
the enemies who were to affect so powerfully all those species in furry
clothes.
First came Father Louis Hennepin and Anthony Auguelle, the Picard du
Gay. They held the key to the northwest regions. Maps and observations,
a new language and the right of discovery were all theirs.
Next, close on their trail, silently and secretly, sneaked old
Aquipaguetin and ten of his warriors. They had the nine points which
possession gives. They would not let any prisoners escape, no matter
how reasonable their excuses might sound. No strangers should get away
to tell the white race the secrets of the Sioux.
Far out of sight behind the warriors the hunting party, lured by King
Charles's antics and Accau's purpose, straggled along the shore. A
fortune in pelts was carelessly dragging in their untidy baggage.
Last of all there came swiftly down the stream a third canoe. Its
appearance was one of those accidents which change the course of large
events. In it were two Indian guides, a French gentleman and four of
his followers.
The gentleman was the Sieur DuLuth. He was an agent for one of the
Canadian fur companies and had been spending a year in the neighborhood
of the west end of Lake Superior. He had planted the French arms in
the waters where the first tributaries of the Mississippi rise and
had claimed much new soil and found many haunts of small fur-bearing
animals.
He was now roving south by way of the St. Croix River. It emptied into
a magnificent stream, which he guessed must be the fabled Father of
Waters. He stopped there to gossip with the squaws he saw. They told
him that on this Great River some white men, prisoners of the Sioux,
were only two days distant.
Sieur DuLuth knew the uncertain temper of the Sioux. Indeed it has
never changed. There are old men now living on the shore where the
Sieur DuLuth stood who can tell of their own youthful part in the Sioux
wars of the 1860's when the Minnesota tribes behaved very much as
Anthony saw them do.
"We must go to the rescue of these white men," the Sieur DuLuth had
promptly decided, "and join forces with them. Together we will be
able to interest the Indians in trading and so persuade them to make
treaties."
In the mean time, Anthony and the friar were in doleful plight. They
had no stores. Ten charges of powder were their only ammunition. They
planned to keep it for self-defense. Instead of shooting game, they
snared fish, captured turtles, chased woodchuck. Hunger was a constant
companion. Wild fruits, of unknown species, made them ill. The hope of
meeting the traders buoyed them. They bore each hardship as though it
had been a blessing and went bravely on.
Little thinking that some one was all this time steadily following his
course, coming nearer and nearer, Anthony seldom looked back.
One day he glanced up from the cooking of a scanty dinner. Peering at
him over the edge of the bank were the eyes of an Indian. At least he
thought it was an Indian, but when he went to look he found nothing.
At supper-time, farther down the stream, he had the uncanny feeling
of being watched. He advanced slowly toward the brink. The dismay
in his face was reflected by the friar, for Aquipaguetin rose up and
confronted them. He should have been hundreds of miles away. Every
little hair on Anthony's body stirred separately as he wondered how
long that revengeful savage had been within club-throwing distance.
With a single gesture the chief bade them stand still. A stone club
and evil scowl emphasized his meaning. A painted warrior came over
the river's bank and stood beside him. The warrior wore a tremendous
bonnet. It stuck gay feathers aloft and dangled them all the way to
the ground. Beads by the dozen, from Accau's precious stores, made him
twinkle like a jeweler's window. He was fully armed. Another in similar
garb came and joined the two; then another and another.
The explorers had no inkling of what these Indians meant to do. It was
hard for Anthony to keep a cool and indifferent attitude until ten
savages in gorgeous array had slowly appeared and formed themselves
into a background for Aquipaguetin.
They were dressed for some special occasion. Indians are masters of the
language of signs. The old chief, by a few pointings here and there and
a motion or two, gave them to understand that he was on his way down
the river to the mouth of the Wisconsin.
"Are you on your way to meet the traders?" asked the friar in a
sentence which he thought excellent Sioux.
Aquipaguetin was.
"You wily old strategist!" cried Anthony. "If the traders come you want
to get first choice of their goods. If they don't come you will be
ahead of us on the river to cut off our escape: How I hate you!"
All the warriors nodded solemnly at Anthony. What a pity they didn't
understand his language!
They circled around to show the white men how many and strong they
were. The chief repeated his command for the Frenchmen not to follow
him and hurried away. All the warriors trailed after him.
Anthony and the friar went at breakneck speed in the opposite direction
to protect themselves by again joining the hunting party. How utterly
downcast they would have been could they have known that the Sieur La
Salle's traders would never keep the tryst on which all the captives'
thoughts were fixed.
For that fort had come to extremity. No sooner had the commandant gone
for food and munitions to sustain them than the dozen knaves in the
stockade, who outnumbered the honest men, had mutinied. They burned
the fort, stole all the valuables they could carry. Everything else
they threw into the river. The peaceful Indians camped round about the
fort had been massacred by warlike tribes and their hamlets burned.
Desolation reigned.
Where now the beautiful American city of Peoria stands, there were only
ashes, bones, and the memory of the ill-starred Fort Crevecoeur.
Accau became alarmed when he found out that Aquipaguetin had also gone
down the river. He led the hunting party more rapidly in that direction
and constantly watched for his friends.
Great was his relief to see them returning. But when he could discover
no traders with them he was filled with foreboding.
As Anthony and the friar paddled up to the camp it looked like home to
them. The summer sky, the sweet west wind, the billowing plain, the
bronze hunters, the odor of the squaws' cooking-pots, the voices of
children were all sources of delight.
At their approach the cheerful racket died down; the tribe stood still;
all interest focused in one question. "Where are the traders?" The
friar shook his head; an ominous silence followed. King Charles ran
forward barking welcome. No one else was glad to see them.
Anthony begged: "We are hungry. Give us food."
"Where are the traders?" came the sullen chorus.
"We did not find them," was Père Louis' apology.
Narrhetoba's brow grew dark. Ouasicoude's silence was appalling.
At this unhappy moment who should whirl round a bend in full sight of
the hunters but the Nemesis, Aquipaguetin!
In the few days that it had taken Anthony and the friar to reach the
camp, the old chief, taxing to the utmost those famous paddle muscles
of his warriors, had gone down to the mouth of the Wisconsin, found no
traders, turned himself about and came back again at double speed in
rage supreme.
He leaped ashore. The armed force of his warriors filed in fierce array
on his heels.
"White men are liars!" he thundered. "There are no traders!"
The warriors, with long groans, burst into tears.
The hunters caught up their weapons. They rushed at the Frenchmen.
Squaws stirred their fires--something more interesting than food was
promised for a roasting. The ten little Indians hopped up and down with
joy at the prospect of savage sport.
The story of the northern Mississippi, all the hard-won knowledge of
its course, might have been blotted out then and there. Three lives
could have vanished in faggot smoke and left no trace.
But the Sieur DuLuth was energetic with his paddles also. The Sioux too
often meant mischief. The Frenchmen might need him. White men who met
Sioux generally _did_ require help.
In the midst of the powwow--for Indians can seldom do anything without
a powwow--the third canoe appeared upon the river.
How like guardian angels the weather-beaten faces of the new-comers
looked to the doomed men; how much sweeter than any music was the Sieur
DuLuth's shout: "We are traders! Friends to the red men and friends to
the white!"
The camp exploded with glee. Everybody, even Aquipaguetin, scrambled to
the water's edge. DuLuth and his men were pulled ashore and embraced
ecstatically. Greedy eyes feasted on his bulging stores. How they loved
him! What affection they had for all white men!
They underwent violent reaction. "Get out the peace-pipes," was one
command. "Bring on a feast," was another.
To the savages gloating over the prospect of bartering their
buffalo-skins for weapons and trinkets it was an unimportant detail
that these two parties of Frenchmen to whom New France looked for the
establishment of a vast business should be meeting for the first time.
Traders had been promised; traders had come: that was enough for them.
All the little Indians and a hundred big ones hastened to show
their gratitude. Friendship between the two races was established
straightway. Ouasicoude uttered the ultimatum of the Sioux: "The
Frenchmen are welcome to all the fur they can carry. We will give them
much food. They may go when they please and where they like. They are
free!"
V
MANY MOUTHS
Shooting Big Game for the Servants of the King under Robert Cavelier de
La Salle--Fit Gifts for a King.
"EGGS!" cried Anthony, "Eggs!" He licked his lips. "I have not tasted
an egg for a long time," and he smiled his gayest at an Indian who was
carrying in both hands a dish hastily made from a palmetto leaf.
The savage was proud of his find and a little more excited than even
fresh eggs seemed to warrant. But then he was a southern Indian and
they are always more emotional than northern ones. He was a present
from some Indian village lately visited by this party of the Sieur La
Salle's with whom Anthony was now exploring and he may have wanted to
call attention to himself as a useful and important person.
"They look rather queer," Anthony touched them with an inquiring
finger; "some sort of wild hen may have laid them. They look something
like turtle eggs."
"No. Not turtle," the Indian was sure of that. He stated their name
positively.
Anthony had never heard the word. He called an interpreter. That worthy
could pronounce the word which was new to him also. He could explain
at second hand that it meant a creature living sometimes on land and
sometimes in the water, very large and dangerous.
"Oh, nonsense," laughed Anthony, "it would not take a very big bird to
lay those eggs. You should see a really large one like an ostrich. Go
bring another Indian, for I'm sure we do not understand each other."
He put the dish down in the sand near the camp-fire as he waited.
Sometimes it was necessary to hunt an interpreter to interpret the
interpreters.
It was nearly dinner-time and the whole of the Sieur La Salle's train,
two dozen Frenchmen, a dozen and a half of Indians, ten squaws and
three papooses and a guide or so hurried up to stare hungrily at the
palmetto leaf, while the owner of this treasure trove, in a frenzy of
words, tried to tell them that a fierce manitou as big as a man and
wicked enough to bite a boat in two had laid those eggs. They must not
be eaten.
This was unwelcome news to the cook, to whom the beautiful southern
reaches of the Great River were not yielding as much foodstuff as she
needed for her table.
Sieur La Salle had a cool, scientific interest in every form of life.
He listened carefully to the Indian because he wanted to learn all he
could of real and fancied fauna.
Henry Tonty, a captain and the Sieur La Salle's most devoted aide, was
second in command. He watched with much amusement. Fantastic notions
such as Indians delight in often caught his ready sympathy.
And the priest of the expedition, Father Membre, felt it his duty to
keep his ears open when a heathen manitou was mentioned.
From the leader down to the tiniest papoose anything that had to do
with meals claimed full attention.
How long the talk might have lasted it would be hard to tell had
not Mother Nature herself chosen this moment to hatch those eggs.
Warm sand and sunshine and fire were her helpers. This was what the
Indian wished. He was more than satisfied at the astonishment of the
northerners when there emerged, not fledglings, but squirming lizards.
"El-lagarto!" cried Tonty in Spanish. "Ha! They are crocodiles. Destroy
them."
The Father laughed with contempt, "We need not be afraid of such tiny
crocodiles, nor of the manitou they breed."
As Anthony recoiled from the wriggling mites he knew by the stirring
of his curls that the Indian might be justified in his dread of the
manitou.
The Sieur La Salle gave the Indian a special present for the timeliness
of his warning and issued the command, "No swimming in the bayous, no
jumping from boats to floating logs, no paddle hands trailing in the
water."
Anthony was filled with creeping nerves. He could not eat the ration
doled out to him at the dinner, which did _not_ include eggs. He shook
and shook, partly with the chill which precedes the fever of malaria
and partly with the shiver the reptiles gave him.
But he was normal again when the full moon came shining through the
moss-draped branches of the live-oaks. The odor of jessamine, the song
of the mocking-bird, the silver water rolling past, the easy bed of
shore grass, the vespers of the peeper frogs, the altar candles of the
fireflies, all combined to make him love the southland and to wonder
why Canadians stayed in ice-bound Canada when France could give them
homes in such balmy lands as this.
The Sieur La Salle, who was leading them down the river, was young,
handsome, educated, titled, and rich. Honors and pleasures were at
his hand if he lived in his native country; but he had one of those
brave hearts which desired to sacrifice itself for France in the front
trenches of the New World.
More than any other one discovery France felt that she needed to have
a western water route to the trade of the Orient mapped out. Sieur La
Salle had undertaken to find some northwest passage through this new
American continent which barred the way. The king gave him a seigniory
on the Saint Lawrence River. It was named La Chine to remind him of his
ambition to achieve a short cut to China. He explored far and near.
He finally decided from what he heard through the Indians that a man in
a canoe, with a few portages, could go from one side of the continent
to the other by water. Starting at the mouth of the Saint Lawrence on
the Atlantic, sailing through the Great Lakes, down any one of several
tributaries to the Mississippi, then up the Missouri, then into the La
Platte, from its headwaters to those of the Colorado, down to the Gulf
of California, he could at last dip into the Pacific. That route is
still open, but there had never been a deep waterway for ocean-going
ships until the Panama Canal was begun by the French in 1880 and
completed by the United States in 1914. So the Sieur La Salle hunted in
vain.
When legends of the Mississippi began to reach him he hoped that the
great sea into which it was said to empty might be the Pacific. The
Sieur Joliet's voyage proved that it had some southern instead of a
western outlet.
The Sieur Joliet's maps, the Père Marquette's diary, Friar Hennepin's
descriptions, Accau's business reports, the Sieur DuLuth's estimate of
fur-bearing animals, all combined to interest the Empire in developing
the Great River valley. The Sieur La Salle received most of the help he
asked for when he began to plan a French port at the mouth of the river
which could be open to traffic all the year round and could afford an
ocean carry for the products of the valley.
At Niagara he built a ship called the _Griffen_, the first to sail
the Great Lakes, but it was lost before it could get into the ocean
to go to the Mississippi's mouth. Another ship coming to him from
France went down in the Saint Lawrence. These huge misfortunes forced
him to abandon the idea of deep-water vessels for his first voyage on
the Mississippi. He used the only things he could get--the same old
birch-bark canoes which the natives had always had. They could not
carry the profitable cargoes of the bigger ships, but they might serve
to find a port.
In them, partly because they were fitted to the river and partly
because they were manned by Indians who understood their navigation,
the Sieur La Salle and his retinue were now making a happy voyage. They
had come down by way of the Illinois River, offering friendship to the
hospitable Indian villages and scaring the hostile ones into allegiance
by a fine show of state.
On this particular day they were far below the last point touched by
the Sieur Joliet, and Anthony's gray eyes grew wider and wider as he
viewed the semi-tropical scenes and marveled at the ever-broadening
expanse of the river so truly great.
Soon they came to a place where the main stream divided into three. The
party separated; several boats for each of the new currents would speed
the journey's end. Sieur La Salle took the right-hand one. Perhaps he
was hoping against hope for some western outlet.
When the fleet came together again it was upon salt water. Blue,
sparkling, and invigorating, the water and the air of the Gulf of
Mexico filled them with joy.
"Past this gulf the Spanish galleons go back to the Old World heavily
laden with the gold of their new lands. From this port we can ship
cargoes of furs almost as valuable as theirs. Nearly a century and a
half ago the Spaniards saw this region, but they have never fortified
nor possessed it," said the Sieur La Salle to his officers. "We will
now take it under the protection of our Empire."
Jubilant over their luck, they began to prepare for a formal claim.
During the bustle an Indian signaled to Anthony and he withdrew to let
the savage whisper in his ear, "Do you remember the eggs?"
Anthony grimaced to show that he did.
"El-lagarto," repeated the Indian carefully. He liked the Spanish word.
"I can show you one."
"I'm not sure I want to see one--but--yes--of course I do," and Anthony
followed his guide.
On a little rise of muddy ground was a jumble of driftwood and grass.
The Indian mounted it with Anthony at his heels. He peered over a log
and, bobbing his head with assurance, pointed his finger and made way
for his companion to see. Anthony stuck _his_ head forward and almost
into the open maw of the most horrid creature on earth--two immense
jaws wide open--double rows of long white fangs--
He forgot that he was now grown up. He gave the shriek after shriek of
a scared little boy and, flouncing backward, went tumbling down the
knoll in a madness of haste.
The conference was stopped. All crowded round him in consternation. He
was too shaken to be ashamed of himself. "What's the matter?" was the
demand.
"El-lagarto," explained the Indian, charmed with this second sensation
he had produced.
"Did you kill it, Tony?" asked the Sieur La Salle.
"No," confessed Anthony. "The instant I looked at it, it opened the
biggest mouth ever seen and almost bit my head off."
"I will shoot it," and Tonty picked up his firearms; "we don't want one
so near the camp."
"It has already been dead for a very long time," began the Indian; "I
myself tied its mouth open with a thong--"
As this fact brought the laughter of his peers, Anthony flew into a
rage and plunged at the Indian with both fists clenched. Nothing would
have pleased the rank and file of soldiers nor the savage boatmen
better than a fight in the ring they formed. But the officers pulled
Anthony off the prostrate, bewildered Indian, who could not understand
the pain of du Gay's wounded vanity.
The poor savage seriously explained to all the interested circle: "When
the dead el-lagartoes are quite--quite--_ripe_--it is the custom of my
people to pluck out the elegant teeth and to make ourselves necklaces.
Why should the white man be so noisy about that?"
Why indeed?
Anthony had so exhausted his emotions that he was very quiet and only
half appreciative as he held his place in the group who were ready for
the ceremony of taking possession of a kingdom.
To represent the Church, the Father Membre set up a cross and buried
near it a lead plate bearing the arms of France. For the Empire the
Sieur La Salle erected a column with the emblem of France in full view.
These words were carved in the wood: "Louis Le Grand, Roy de France et
de Narvarre, regne, la Neuvieme Avril 1682."
The Indians, in the brightest of feathers and the dullest of faces,
formed a background for the Father Membre, who chanted the Te Deum.
Anthony led the hymns. Then the Sieur La Salle in legal speech took
possession of all the lands drained by the Mississippi and its
tributaries from the Alleghanies in the east to the unknown mountains
in the west, from the Great Lakes to the Gulf. The Frenchmen lined up
in military formation and fired a salute to the king's new dominion. It
was named Louisiana, for his Majesty.
Think how bold a spirit a man must have had to make such a claim; think
what a magnificent present from a subject to his ruler; think of the
changes which have happened in that vast domain!
* * * * *
For eighty years the rustic standard held Louisiana. During those days
whenever a wandering missionary would meet a soldier of fortune in a
native village they would join with some _coureur de bois_ to start
a trading post. Many dotted the valley. To civilize his new country
his Majesty sent over ship-loads of "king's maids," whom the priests
married to the soldiers and _coureurs de bois_. Houses took the places
of tepees, the tiny villages grew to towns, French habits of living and
gentle ideals of courtesy colored midwestern life with a romance which
has never faded.
Then the mother country, politically harassed, ceded Louisiana west of
the Mississippi to Spain. In another three years the Highland Black
Watch captured Fort Chartres and all Louisiana east of the Great River
went to England. Old World emigrants, Scotch and Irish and what not,
began pouring toward these lands to make themselves on the virgin soil
into something that was not Spanish nor French nor English, but a new
race called American. At the time of the Revolution they took Louisiana
away from England by force of arms. The part owned by Spain had been
ceded back to France, and that the Americans bought of Napoleon in 1803.