his state was pitiful.
"The Natchez murdered my two companions days and days ago," he
screamed, in hysterical relief, when he found that he was rescued from
his slimy cave by men of his own nation. "What will the post do about
such an outrage?" he demanded, wildly. "Are traders to be sacrificed
without revenge?" He pounded distracted hands upon his chest.
As he fed the poor thing, who had been living upon raw fish and roots
for a long time, the officer asked, "What did your companions do first
to the Natchez?"
"We walked around in their funny church a little; that's all," faltered
the _coureur de bois_. "The White-Apple's daughter saw us and threw a
tomahawk at us. She hit first one and then another." He turned very
pale as he recalled the sight. "I escaped by falling in the river."
"Not the pretty Apple-Blossom?" gasped Anthony, "Not our gentle pupil
in French and music who came to the wedding?"
The Sieur de Bienville inclined his head. "She has charge of the maids
who help tend the temple's sacred fire which came from the sun and
which never goes out. These men profaned a sanctuary."
"She should have tomahawked you, too!" cried Anthony to the _coureur
de bois_. "You foolish fellows came near being the death of us all. We
have spent a week soothing the Natchez. We could not find out why they
were angry."
"They will never forgive nor forget. It is only one of the many
indignities done them by your careless acts. If you promise never to
mention the murder or to stir up trouble about it I'll carry you with
us," said the stern young officer. "Otherwise back you go into the
river."
The _coureur de bois_ agreed to silence. They took him to New Orleans,
an abject prisoner.
Yet many days later, when there came messengers, one tumbling over
the other in their frantic haste to tell of a massacre of settlers at
several small posts, he began to babble his story, and the cry went
round: "The Natchez! The Natchez did it. We must subdue the Natchez!"
The young wives from France were panic-stricken at this frightful
menace of armed savages. Husbands who for themselves would not
have minded a few Indians on the war-path were now excited by the
uncontrollable terror of the women. They demanded of Bienville the
extinction of the Natchez. A mob spirit grew.
"Do you see the gray moss hanging from the live-oaks?" these citizens
cried. "The Spanish and the Indians call its clusters 'French wigs.'
If we do not kill these Natchez, then shall our hair dangle in like
festoons from every branch."
"Give us action!" howled the soldiers. "We came to protect the colony.
Now is the time to strike!"
The distressed governor sighed heavily. He could not afford mutiny of
his troops nor the desertion of his citizens. Neither could he trust
the Natchez, who no longer trusted him.
"It is the beginning of the end," he told Anthony, sadly. "The
condition of peace between two nations for which our priests hoped is
too ideal. None of us on either side are self-controlled enough to
maintain it."
He hastily filled his bateaux with several hundred men, hurried under
sail and oar up the Mississippi to Fort Rosalie, marched out from
there, took the Natchez by surprise, and fell upon them with gun and
bayonet.
Now Anthony loved a fight. For his vivacious nature it was the best
way to clear the air. Pummeling some rude fellow who needed it was
a satisfaction. But this battle was not a fight. It was war; cruel,
bloody war. His whole soul sickened at cutting down these Indians whose
artistic, half-civilized towns had so often been his shelter. He had a
childish fancy that if he had been given time to go about among them
with the fiddle they loved, he could have brought peace again.
It was too late. They were beaten by the sword. Conquered and subdued,
the Natchez agreed to whatever the French dictated. Fort Rosalie became
the headquarters of the Sieur de Bienville. Under his direction the
sullen Indians labored at enlarging the fort which had taken their
freedom from them. Many of the king's maids and their husbands came to
its shelter to found homes.
Then the Sieur de Bienville was called to France and Anthony wandered
disconsolate from the fort, now under a commander as heartless as
Bienville had been kind.
Although the plantations were destroyed, the Natchez temple to the
sun, their deity, stood inviolate. The village looked the same as
ever. Anthony often went there unafraid. Some of his old welcome still
remained when they accepted his gifts. For in Indian-land one speaks by
a present. If he gives nothing it is the same as though he were silent.
"Make me a pipe," the pretty princess coaxed him one day, "a flute of
several reeds." She selected some from a handful she held. She counted
the others carefully and tied them in bundles, the same number in
each. "Play me a tune upon it; not a sad song because the new governor
demands that we give up our town to him, but a joyous air which tells
that the sun still shines."
Anthony made the pipe and taught her maids a triumphant tune. The
princess gave him a bundle of reeds. "Destroy a reed each day. When
there is only one left come again and we will give you a present of
tender chickens and fresh eggs--all that our chiefs can carry, to take
to the fort. The delicacies will speak for us and show our feeling of
submission to the conquerors." Her smile was not a pleasant thing to
see; it worried him.
With an anxious mind the Picard du Gay took his bundle of reeds. He
made the rounds of the small settlements dependent on Fort Rosalie
and warned them that the Natchez meant mischief. He pleaded with the
officers of the fort to reinforce themselves. He could not explain what
the reeds meant nor tell the settlers what to fear from the Indians
whose arms had been confiscated.
The Sieur de Bienville, in France, was pleading with the court for more
men for colonial defense. The local governor sent requests, by every
ship, for arms--more arms. _Coureurs de bois_ predicted uprisings. Who
listens to any Cassandra?
On the day that he drew the last reed Anthony went early to see the
princess. The maidens, gentle and domestic, were loading the braves
with dressed fowls and baskets of eggs. A more peaceable-looking
procession never took the trail to any fort.
"Stay you here before our temple with me," commanded the princess,
whose vivid pose and brilliant eyes suggested a crisis of some sort.
"A white man shall witness our submission and play our song upon his
pipes."
He felt helpless, worn, and old, a victim in her power.
She abandoned French and took up Natchez words. "The war between us has
only begun. No one but the sun above can see how it will end."
Confused by her distraught manner, Anthony looked helplessly at the one
reed in his hand.
"Every Natchez tribe had such a bundle," she went on. "This morning,
when there was one reed left, each warrior ran to the nearest white
man's post around Fort Rosalie with his newly made stone tomahawk
hidden under a present. Every Frenchman is massacred. Every lodge-pole
is hung with scalps--your hair, not ours. So do the fashions change."
Anthony could not believe her. She pointed in the direction of Fort
Rosalie. Smoke, heavy and ominous, was rising above the trees. The
stockade, the settlers' houses, were on fire! To be able to kindle the
buildings the Indians must have destroyed first the defenders and then
have dragged out the women and children.
With one blow they had killed or captured five hundred French and
avenged themselves upon the white race.
The many battles of the Natchez war which followed ended, after several
years, in the destruction of that tribe. But Anthony, almost the sole
survivor of Fort Rosalie, felt that the French had lost, in breaking
with the semi-barbarous and skilled Natchez, more than any ultimate
victory could have given them.
The princess took the pipe from his nerveless fingers and played some
wild pagan strain. All aglow with triumph, she put her hands beneath
the hereditary fire on the altar, gathered it up as though it had been
a flower, drove her vestals before her, and went down a forest path out
of sight forever, clasping to her breast the undying flame.
XI
STAGS OF TWELVE
One Victory for Chartres in the Financial Struggles of Pierre Duque de
Boisbriant--When Bubbles Burst
WHO planned the first Wild West show? Could it have been an American
cowboy? No. It was a Frenchman. His name was Pierre Duque; his title,
the Sieur de Boisbriant, Knight of the Military Order of St. Louis.
As king's lieutenant he was trying to regulate the tangled affairs of
the Illinois region during an official visit to Fort Chartres on the
Great River.
Louisiana to its remotest borders had gone to speculating on a form
of paper credit which John Law, the financial dictator of France, had
started in the promise of making himself and everybody else immensely
rich without having to give value received at any place. His scheme was
a bright Mississippi bubble. It burst at the prick of the collectors
who demanded real money. All the towns were left in debt.
When he first thought of giving the show to pay the Illinois colony's
bills, the Sieur de Boisbriant's whole face lighted up with fun. As he
caught Anthony Auguelle's glance upon him he tried to look grave. He
felt like a small boy in mischief and grew rather sheepish.
Anthony's dancing eyes arched their brows quizzically and he clucked a
reproving sound between his teeth. "What do you mean, dear Sieur," he
demanded, with an appearance of severity, "by enjoying yourself at a
crisis so serious that I have come all the way from New Orleans to help
you?"
"I have thought of a way out of our troubles that is gay enough to suit
even you." And the lieutenant gave up to laughter as though he were
more than pleased with himself. "Since the settlements at Kaskaskia and
on the American Bottom are growing and a little post starting among
the Missouri across the Mississippi, we are strongly established here
at the mouth of the Illinois. Our Indians receive such good care that
they are like spoiled children arrogantly demanding their own way in
everything. If we try to make them work to help pay the debts of the
fort they refuse our demands. They even threaten to join the Chickasaws
against us."
Anthony frowned. "We never have enough men at any fort to defend it
properly. We can't keep our own self-respect when we make such a poor
showing before our dependents. How are we to raise crops for export
when we haven't soldiers to enforce the orders of the overseers who
command the Indians to plant our commons?"
"If the Indians could be made to understand how powerful France is;
if France could see how remarkable the Indians can be; if both could
be impressed with the importance of the explorers who go between
them--then might we all assist one another to better purpose," began
the Sieur de Boisbriant.
Anthony interrupted: "France herself is like one who has lost all in a
lottery. The bubble has left her on the verge of bankruptcy. If we ask
for more men or more money she lays aside our petitions and forgets
them."
"Some special messenger of interesting personality might receive
immediate attention even in the dilatory court," smiled the lieutenant.
"I am thinking of sending a dancing-bear--"
"What!"
"And a panther cub in leash--"
"What!"
"And a stag of twelve--"
"What!"
"And a dozen of our handsomest young braves in war-paint and bonnets;
the oldest and wrinkledest and wickedest medicine-man we can find with
full regalia; the littlest, reddest, fattest papooses; squaws decked in
bead-embroidered, fringed doeskin; and particularly one or two of those
beautiful shell-bejeweled young girls, the maidens of the Illinois."
Anthony was speechless.
The Sieur de Boisbriant began again: "We must give up our dreams of
such gold as the Spaniards found. Our wealth is in agriculture. It
takes a longer time to develop fields than it does to pick up gold, but
the riches are quite as sure. That nation is stable whose people live
on the soil."
Anthony had no farming blood in him. He could not give up all dreams of
a French Eldorado. "We found some lead in the Missouri country--"
"Also delicious wild apples of quite as much value as the lead,"
interrupted the lieutenant, in his turn bent on proving his point.
How little either one of them guessed that Missouri was finally to
produce as its best known asset a crop of fun, through its humorist
Mark Twain, which would supply not only the Mississippi country, but
the whole laughter-hungry world.
Anthony rubbed his chin and thought about it. "It is true that our
settlers in their log houses so neatly whitewashed and thatched, so
pretty with the roses and grape-vines on the galleries and the violets
growing side by side with beans in the garden, are more contented and
industrious tilling the outlying fields of the commandant's common than
are the gold-hunters who never get anything but yellow fever as they
go prospecting. To enable this state of affairs to continue I must now
catch a bear to hold a beggar's cup under the king's nose and collect a
bit of needed money--is that your request?"
"It is."
It seems incredible, but they did it. Braves were selected for their
prowess, squaws for their accomplishments, and maids for their beauty.
Sergeant Du Bois of the fort was their chief assistant. He admired the
lithe slenderness, the rich, heavy hair, and the delicate features of
the Indian girls. He suggested:
"My lord lieutenant, let the chieftain's daughter, who is called a
princess, be invited to head the embassy and give social tone to the
expedition."
Oh, diplomatic young man! Oh, ardent lover! For this strange affair
with the princess his name is written in history. His heroic deeds as a
soldier have faded beside its romance.
Rude bears, reversing the plan of things, several times captured
Anthony before he found the teachable cub he wanted. A mother
panther tore off his clothes and some of his curls as he secured
her too-playful kitten. The stag, a noble specimen, wild and full of
fear, gave him more trouble than all the others, hobbled, muzzled, and
harnessed though he was.
Down the river went the whole concourse to New Orleans. That hilarious
town greeted their theatrical appearance with continuous applause.
To the travelers it was a holiday; to the manager of the menagerie a
time of anxiety. Anthony's worst fears about the animals were realized.
In crossing to the sailing-vessel the deer, released from the prison
of a shed in the town, saw again the sunlight and smelled the flowing
water. Voices from the forest called him. He burst the confining
thongs, struck down his keepers. Plunging into the Great River, he swam
to freedom.
The expedition was forced to sail without a buck.
A cat may look at a king. And so may a kitten--a panther's kitten. But
not with half the astonishment which the king showed in looking at the
kitten--such a curious kitten. His Majesty's eyes were round and full
of delight as he gazed on the kitten's companions, that whole Wild West
show of the Sieur de Boisbriant's devising.
"Our cousin of England has had a Pocahontas," quoth Louis XV; "for
ourself, we prefer a variety in savages. It is our pleasure to receive
the Illinois."
Right royally he provided for them, while they did their utmost to
secure his favor. The braves, quite as much awed by the wonders of
Paris as the Sieur de Boisbriant had expected they would be, danced
their war-dances, sang their calumet songs, and presented him with a
peace-pipe. They were given the stage in the Grand Opera. Squaws and
braves in chorus made music of haunting, fantastic airs, accompanied by
primitive instruments of a kind never before heard within those walls.
The Indian flute of five exquisite notes imitating the songs of those
native birds which the Louisiana ornithologist, Audubon, afterward
loved so well, was the delight of the Parisian orchestra.
Ladies of the court were captivated with the barbaric handiwork of the
squaws. Duchesses and maids of honor vied with one another in showing
attention to the princess whom Du Bois was thoughtful enough to bring.
These beauties of a new type were like live dolls to the French court.
The latest Parisian creations in costumes were given them. Their
hanging braids were elaborated to coiffures. High-heeled, narrow-toed
satin slippers replaced their flat moccasins, and stiff bodices of the
tightest girded their supple waists. If they were uncomfortable in
these civilized costumes they did not say so, for they looked most
charming.
Nobody liked the panther cub. Even the ladies would have preferred him
in the shape of a muff. But the bear who danced to a gourd rattle and
growled in Choctaw was the delight of all the children. It is painful
to observe how short is the distance between ultra-refinement and
savagery. Those French boys of noble birth forgot the obligations of
their titles and acted exactly like a pack of young Indians.
They baited that bear!
And the bear broke his leash! The small dukes and marquises took to
their heels. The bear took to his. He had twice as many legs as any one
aristocrat and he made better time. He pounced upon a small chap. Howls
as long as the list of his estates came from the child between hugs.
An Indian brave jumped to the rescue, snatched the victim, and ran for
shelter across the park. The bear followed. A dozen Indians took up a
pursuit of the bear. An excited court looked from the upper windows
of the palace at Versailles to see an Indian with a child running
toward them at a lively pace, while close behind him, taking the smooth
lawns under the clipped trees as though they had been his own Missouri
hillside, the bear also made good speed.
The king was highly diverted. The guards at the entrance gave way
to the runner. They did not challenge the bear. He entered without a
password. If the Indian had been accustomed to doors he might have shut
one after him and put a barricade between himself and his pursuer.
As it was, he went in at one side of the palace and came out at the
other. All the court above-stairs, as in a gallery, leaned over the
balustrades to watch the race and then ran helter-skelter to another
side to be in at the finish. From every direction Indians were flying
at the bear. The chase ended abruptly when they all piled upon him and
the first Indian restored the boy to his mother.
"I would not have believed that a man could outrun a bear," was the
king's comment. "He was going rather fast."
"An Indian on foot can follow a deer and bring it in as quarry at the
end of the day." Anthony, occupying here, as elsewhere, the position
of interpreter and entertainer, spoke with the freedom a chief jester
might have used. "I would we might have brought with us a stag of the
forest to show you, Sire, how these red men can endure."
The king turned upon him that look of genuine interest which all
suppliants at the feet of capricious rulers strive so eagerly to rouse.
"It is not possible for a man to catch a deer!" exclaimed the king.
Anthony answered carefully, "A white man cannot, but these wild men are
of different sinew and very quick in movement."
"In the forest near the Bois Bologne there is a deer-park. Call the
gamekeeper! Let us see what we have," and his Majesty gave his whole
attention to this alluring prospect of a new sport.
The Sieur de Boisbriant, thinking of his colony, had tried to tell
of the oranges, lemons, figs, plums, melons, pecans, sugar-cane,
rice, indigo, yams, and tobacco in the south; of the apples, berries,
cherries, corn, wheat, and rye of the north. Du Bois had mentioned the
water-power to grind all grains and saw the hard wood of the forests,
of abundant fuel to work any metals they found. Both indicated that
they needed a little more help until revenue began to come in from
these sources. The royal ears were dull.
But they were sharp enough for any Mississippi product that could move
as fast as a deer. "We must have a royal stag or two," was his animated
decision as he consulted them in planning the races, which he insisted
must begin forthwith.
How far are the prairies and forests of Illinois from the meadows and
woods of the Bois Bologne? To Anthony they were just around the corner
of any little grove. His heart was in the out-of-doors, never in the
court of kings. He had been longing for the banks of his Great River
with a consuming homesickness. As the race began all sadness vanished
with one bound of his heart. A vista of this French park showed the
king's deer in flight. He was a noble creature--a buck whose horns bore
the rare number of twelve prongs--a stag royal.
On his trail came half the Indian hunters. The magnificent leaps of
the deer were a thing to hold the watchers breathless. The lissome
movements of the bronze hunters suggested the old red gods at play.
The chase was a contest of speed and endurance. Yet its grace and
beauty were so marked, so new, so surprising and utterly absorbing,
that all the spectators were silent and attentive.
Not to overtire the hunters or the buck, particularly not to surfeit
the king, the time of the chase was limited and at the appointed hour
the hunters were recalled. They had not been able to overtake the
"game."
"We have another stag," the king said, with pride, on the second day.
"Bring other runners. Who catches him may have him."
This was the beginning of those feats of daring which set Paris agog
and gave the court the most absorbing entertainment of the century.
There came a day--a glorious day--when wind and sun and exhilarating
air stirred the Indians like a Mississippi morning, when the buck went
easily over brush-heaps with joyous leaps, when the hunters followed
with winged heels. The quarry left them all behind. The red chieftain's
pace never faltered. He began to gain. He went faster and faster. His
speed was like the flight of birds.
Then came the moment which the king had thought impossible.
All eyes saw the Indian run beside the buck and lay a victor's hand
upon a flank. Even a hunter mourns the death of a noble stag. The court
had grown to love this woodland creature. As the Indian flourished his
knife half the court screamed with disapproval. He turned its hilt. The
deer ran on. The savage came back to lay the knife at the feet of the
king. To spare the royal stag was an act of courtesy which delighted
the French, for whose benefit Anthony had carefully planned the
behavior of the red man.
Never again would that court forget the Mississippi colonies or idly
wonder what sort of people Indians were.
In the cathedral of Notre Dame the king, amid great pomp and splendor,
knighted the Sergeant Du Bois. He was given a title and the command of
Fort Chartres.
A knight who is a commandant is a very eligible husband for any lady of
quality. The Sieur Du Bois--"brave, bold, and loyal"--was given the
hand of his princess in the presence of the court.
The great organ of the cathedral pealed, the censers swung, the choir
boys chanted, and the priests married the beautiful girl of the
Illinois to the titled young commandant.
The Sieur de Boisbriant, with papers of lengthened credit in his
pocket, with a gift of more troops and munitions loading at Havre and
promises of endless patronage from his sovereign, stood hand in hand
with the happy Picard du Gay all through the gorgeous ceremony, their
thoughts on the towns of their Great River and how they were to be
lifted above debt and into prosperity as a result of the races with the
stags of twelve.
XII
BRIDGES OF BOATS
A Legend of a Crossing by the Forerunner of the Engineer, James
Eads--From Cajeux to Caissons
ANTHONY stared at the needle of his compass. He reversed the box and
looked again. "Of course the needle points to the pole; it can't do
anything else." He turned his face to the north. "Now my right hand is
toward the east bank of the river; my left hand is toward the west.
I have been going up the river all day." He had been following the
Mississippi and he wrinkled his nose in perplexity as he made the
discovery. "The sun is setting on the east bank of this Great River!"