stands on the Michigan shore. This was where Father Marquette died,
about one hundred and forty years before, and we saw the remains of a
red-cedar cross, erected by his men at the time of his death to mark his
grave; and though his remains had been removed to the Mission, at Point
St. Ignace, the cross was held sacred by the voyageurs, who, in passing,
paid reverence to it, by kneeling and making the sign of the cross. It
was about three feet above the ground, and in a falling condition. We
reset it, leaving it out of the ground about two feet, and as I never
saw it after, I doubt not that it was covered by the drifting sands of
the following winter, and that no white man ever saw it afterwards."
III.
THE MAN WITH THE COPPER HAND.
One day at the end of August, when Marquette's bones had lain under
his chapel altar nearly two years and a half, the first ship ever seen
upon the lakes was sighted off St. Ignace. Hurons and Ottawas, French
traders, and coureurs de bois, or wood-rangers, ran out to see the
huge winged creature scudding betwixt Michilimackinac Island and Round
Island. She was of about forty-five tons' burden. Five cannon showed
through her port-holes, and as she came nearer, a carved dragon was seen
to be her figurehead; she displayed the name Griffin and bore the white
flag of France. The priest himself felt obliged to receive her company,
for three Recollet friars, in the gray robe of St. Francis, appeared on
the deck. But two men, one in a mantle of scarlet and gold, and the
other in white and gold French uniform, were most watched by all eyes.
[Illustration: THE BUILDING OF THE GRIFFIN.
From the Original Engraving in Father Hennepin's "Nouvelle Decouverte,"
Amsterdam, 1704.]
The ship fired a salute, and the Indians howled with terror and started
to run; then turned back to see her drop her sails and her anchor, and
come up in that deep crescent-shaped bay. She had weathered a hard storm
in Lake Huron; but the men who handled her ropes were of little interest
to coureurs de bois on shore, who watched her masters coming to land.
[Illustration: La Salle.]
"It is the Sieur de la Salle in the scarlet mantle," one coureur de bois
said to another. "And this is the ship he hath been building at Niagara.
First one hears that creditors have seized his fort of Frontenac, and
then one beholds him sailing here in state, as though naught on earth
could daunt him."
"I would like service with him," said the other coureur de bois.
His companion laughed.
"Service with La Salle means the hardest marching and heaviest labor
a voyageur ever undertook. I have heard he is himself tough as iron. But
men hereabouts who have been in his service will take to the woods when
they hear he has arrived; traders that he sent ahead with goods. If he
gets his hand on them after he finds they have squandered his property,
it will go hard with them."
"He has a long gray-colored face above his broad shoulders. I have heard
of this Sieur Robert Cavelier de la Salle ever since he came to the
province more than ten years ago, but I never saw him before. Is it true
that Count Frontenac is greatly bound to him?"
"So true that Sieur de la Salle thereby got favor at court. It was at
court that a prince recommended to him yon swart Italian in white and
gold that he brought with him on his last voyage from France. Now, there
is a man known already throughout the colony by reason of his hand."
"Which hand?"
"The right one."
"I see naught ailing that. He wears long gauntlets pulled well over both
wrists."
"His left hand is on his sword hilt. Doth he not hold the right a little
stiffly?"
"It is true. The fingers are not bent."
"They never will be bent. It is a hand of copper."
"How can a man with a copper hand be of service in the wilderness?"
The first ranger shrugged. "That I know not. But having been maimed in
European wars and fitted with a copper hand, he was yet recommended to
Sieur de la Salle."
"But why hath an Italian the uniform of France?"
"He is a French officer, having been exiled with his father from his own
country."
The coureur de bois, who had reached the settlement later than his
companion, grunted.
"One would say thou wert of the Griffin crew thyself, with the latest
news from Quebec and Montreal."
"Not I," laughed the first one. "I have only been in the woods with
Greysolon du Lhut, who knows everything."
"Then he told thee the name of this Italian with the copper hand?"
"Assuredly. This Italian with the copper hand is Sieur Greysolon du
Lhut's cousin, and his name is Henri de Tonty."
"I will say this for Monsieur Henri de Tonty: a better made man never
stepped on the strand at St. Ignace."
[Illustration: Autograph of Tonty.]
Greysolon du Lhut was the captain of coureurs de bois in the northwest.
No other leader had such influence with the lawless and daring. When
these men were gathered in a settlement, spending what they had earned
in drinking and gaming, it was hard to restrain them within civilized
bounds. But when they took service to shoulder loads and march into the
wilderness, the strongest hand could not keep them from open rebellion
and desertion. There were few devoted and faithful voyageurs, such
as Pierre Porteret and Jacques had proved themselves in following
Marquette. The term of service was usually two years; but at the first
hardship some might slip away in the night, even at the risk of
perishing before they reached the settlements.
St. Ignace made a procession behind La Salle's party and followed them
into the chapel to hear mass--French traders, Ottawas, Hurons, coureurs
de bois, squaws, and children. When the priest turned from the altar, he
looked down on complexions ranging from the natural pallor of La Salle
to the black-red of the most weather-beaten native.
[Illustration: Totem of the Hurons.]
The Hurons then living at St. Ignace, whom Father Marquette had led
there from his earlier mission, afterwards wandered to Detroit and
Sandusky, the priests having decided to abandon St. Ignace and burn the
chapel. In our own day we hear of their descendants as settled in the
Indian Territory, the smallest but wealthiest band of all transplanted
Indians.
Having entered the lake region with impressive ceremonies, which he
well knew how to employ before ignorant men and savages, La Salle threw
aside his splendor, and, with his lieutenant, put on the buckskins for
marching and canoe journeying into the wilderness. Some of the men he
had sent up the lakes with goods nearly a year before had collected
a large store of furs, worth much money; and these he determined to
send back to Canada on the Griffin, to satisfy his creditors and to give
him means for carrying on his plans. He had meant, after sending Tonty
on to the Illinois country, to return to Canada and settle his affairs.
But it became necessary, as soon as he landed at St. Ignace, to divide
his party and send Tonty with some of the men to Sault Ste. Marie after
plunderers who had made off with his goods. The others would doubtless
desert if left any length of time without a leader. It was a risk also
to send his ship back to the colony without standing guard over its
safety himself. But he greatly needed the credit which its load of furs
would give him. So he determined to send it manned as it was, with
orders to return to the head of Lake Michigan as soon as the cargo was
safely landed; while he voyaged down the west side of the lake, and
Tonty, returning from the Sault, came by the east shore. The reunited
party would then have the Griffin as a kind of floating fort or refuge,
and by means of it keep easily in communication with the settlements.
La Salle wanted to build a chain of forts from Niagara to the mouth of
the Mississippi, when that could be reached. Around each of these, and
protected by them, he foresaw settlements of French and Indians, and
a vast trade in furs and the products of the undeveloped west. Thus
France would acquire a province many times its own size. The undertaking
was greater than conquering a kingdom. Nobody else divined at that time
the wonderful promise of the west as La Salle pictured it. Little
attention had been paid to the discoveries of Marquette and Jolliet.
France would have got no benefit from them had not La Salle so soon
followed on the track of missionary and trader, verified what had been
done, and pushed on.
He had seen Jolliet twice. The first time they met near Niagara, when
both were exploring; the second time, Jolliet is said to have stopped
with his maps and papers before they were lost at Fort Frontenac, on
his return from his Mississippi voyage. La Salle, then master of Fort
Frontenac, must have examined these charts and journals with interest.
It does not appear that the two men were ever very friendly. Jolliet
was too easily satisfied to please La Salle; he had not the ability to
spread France's dominion over the whole western wilderness, and that was
what La Salle was planning to do before Marquette and Jolliet set out
for the Mississippi.
St. Ignace became once more the starting point of an important
expedition, though La Salle, before sending the Griffin back, sailed in
her as far as the Bay of Puans, where many of his furs were collected.
He parted with this good ship in September. She pointed her prow
eastward, and he turned south with fourteen men in four canoes, carrying
tools, arms, goods, and even a blacksmith's forge.
Through storm, and famine, and peril with Indians they labored down the
lake, and did not reach the place where they were to meet Tonty until
the first of November. La Salle had the three Recollet friars with him.
Though one was a man sixty-four years old, he bore, with his companions,
every hardship patiently and cheerfully. The story of priests who helped
to open the wilderness and who carried religion to savages is a
beautiful chapter of our national life.
Tonty was not at the place where they were to meet him. This was the
mouth of the St. Joseph River, which La Salle named the Miamis. The men
did not want to wait, for they were afraid of starving if they reached
the Illinois country after the Indians had scattered to winter hunting
grounds. But La Salle would not go on until Tonty appeared. He put the
men to work building a timber stockade, which he called Fort Miamis;
thus beginning in the face of discouragement his plan of creating a line
of fortifications.
Tonty, delayed by lack of provisions and the need of hunting, reached
Fort Miamis with his men in twenty days. But the Griffin did not come
at all. More than time enough had passed for her to reach Fort Niagara,
unload her cargo, and return. La Salle watched the lake constantly for
her sails. He began to be heavy-hearted for her, but he dared wait no
longer; so, sending two men back to meet and guide her to this new post,
he moved on.
Eight canoes carried his party of thirty-three people. They ascended the
St. Joseph River to find a portage to the head waters of the Illinois.
This brought them within the present state of Indiana; and when they had
reached that curve of the river where South Bend now stands, they left
St. Joseph to grope for the Theakiki, or Kankakee, a branch called by
some Indians the Illinois itself.
La Salle became separated from the party on this portage, eagerly and
fearlessly scouring the woods for the river's beginning. Tonty camped
and waited for him, fired guns, called, and searched; but he was gone
all night and until the next afternoon. The stars were blotted overhead,
for a powder of snow thickened the air, weirdly illuminating naked trees
in the darkness, but shutting in his vision. It was past midnight when
he came in this blind circle once more to the banks of the St. Joseph,
and saw a fire glinting through dense bushes.
"Now I have reached camp," thought La Salle, and he fired his gun to let
his people know he was approaching. Echoes rolled through the woods.
Without waiting for a shot in reply he hurried to the fire. No person
was near it. The descending snow hissed, caught in the flames. Here was
a home hearth prepared in the wilderness, and no welcome to it but
silence. La Salle called out in every Indian language he knew. Dead
branches grated, and the stream rustled betwixt its edges of ice. A heap
of dry grass was gathered for a bed under a tree by the fire, and its
elastic top showed the hollow where a man had lain. La Salle put some
more wood on the fire, piled a barricade of brush around the bed, and
lay down in a place left warm by some strolling Indian whom his gun had
frightened away. He slept until morning. In the afternoon he found his
own camp.
From the first thread of the Kankakee oozing out of swamps to the Indian
town on the Illinois River where Marquette had done his last missionary
work, was a long canoe journey. It has been said the rivers of the New
World made its rapid settlement possible; for they were open highways,
even in the dead of winter guiding the explorer by their frozen courses.
The Illinois tribe had scattered to their hunting, and the lodges stood
empty. La Salle's men were famished for supplies, so he ventured to open
the covered pits in which the Indians stored their corn. Nothing was
more precious than this hidden grain; but he paid for what he took when
he reached the Indians. This was not until after New Year's day. He had
descended the river as far as that expansion now called Peoria Lake.
The Illinois, after their first panic at the appearance of strange white
men, received La Salle's party kindly, fed all with their own fingers,
and, as they had done with Jolliet and Marquette when those explorers
passed them on the Mississippi, tried to coax their guests to go no
farther. They and other Indians who came to the winter camp told such
tales of danger on that great river about which the French knew so
little, that six of La Salle's men deserted in one night.
This caused him to move half a league beyond the Illinois camp,
where, on the southern bank, he built a palisaded fort and called it
Crevecoeur. He was by this time convinced that the Griffin was lost.
Whether she went down in a storm, or was scuttled and sunk by those to
whom he intrusted her, nothing was ever heard of her again. The furs he
had sent to pay his creditors never in any way reached port. If they
escaped shipwreck, they were stolen by the men who escaped with them.
Nothing could bend La Salle's resolution. He meant in some way to
explore the west through which the southern Mississippi ran. But the
loss of the Griffin hurt him sorely. He could not go on without more
supplies; and having no vessel to bring them, the fearful necessity was
before him of returning on foot and by canoe to Fort Frontenac to bring
them himself.
He began to build another ship on the Illinois River, and needed cables
and rigging for her. This vessel being partly finished by the first of
March, he left her and Fort Crevecoeur in Tonty's charge, and, taking
four Frenchmen and a Mohegan hunter, set out on the long and terrible
journey to Fort Frontenac.
The Italian commandant with the copper hand could number on its metal
fingers the only men to be trusted in his garrison of fifteen. One
Recollet, Father Louis Hennepin, had been sent with two companions by
La Salle to explore the upper Mississippi. Father Ribourde and Father
Membre remained. The young Sieur de Boisrondet might also be relied
on, as well as a Parisian lad named Etienne Renault, and their servant
L'Esperance. As for the others, smiths, shipwrights, and soldiers were
ready to mutiny any moment. They cared nothing about the discovery of
the west. They were afraid of La Salle when he was with them; and,
though it is said no man could help loving Tonty, these lawless fellows
loved their own wills better.
The two men that La Salle had sent to look for the Griffin arrived at
Fort Crevecoeur, bearing a message from him, having met him on the
way. They had no news, but he wrote a letter and sent them on to Tonty.
He urged Tonty to take part of the garrison and go and fortify a great
rock he had noticed opposite the Illinois town. Whatever La Salle wanted
done Tonty was anxious to accomplish, though separating himself from
Crevecoeur, even for a day, was a dangerous experiment. But he took
some men and ascended the river to the rock. Straight-way smiths,
shipwrights, and soldiers in Crevecoeur, seizing powder, lead, furs,
and provisions, deserted and made their way back to Canada. Boisrondet,
the friars, and L'Esperance hurried to tell Tonty; and thus Fort
Crevecoeur and the partly finished ship had to be abandoned. Tonty
dispatched four men to warn La Salle of the disaster. He could neither
hold this position nor fortify the rock in the midst of jealous savages
with two friars, one young officer, a lad, and one servant. He took the
forge, and tools, and all that was left in Crevecoeur into the very
heart of the Indian village and built a long lodge, shaped like the
wigwams of the Illinois. This was the only way to put down their
suspicion. Seeing that the Frenchmen had come to dwell among them, the
Indians were pleased, and their women helped with poles and mats to
build the lodge.
For by this time, so long did it take to cover distances in the
wilderness, spring and summer were past, and the Illinois were dwelling
in their great town, nearly opposite the rock which La Salle desired to
have fortified. Tonty often gazed at it across the river, which flows
southwestward there, with a ripple that does not break into actual
rapids. The yellow sandstone height, rising like a square mountain out
of the shore, was tufted with ferns and trees. No man could ascend it
except at the southeast corner, and at that place a ladder or a rope was
needed by the unskillful. It had a flat, grassy top shut in by trees,
through which one could see the surrounding country as from a tower.
A ravine behind it was banked and floored with dazzling white sand, and
walled at the farther side by a timbered cliff rising to a prairie.
With a score of men Tonty could have held this natural fortress against
any attack. Buckets might be rigged from overhanging trees to draw up
water from the river. Provisions and ammunition only were needed for a
garrison. This is now called Starved Rock, and is nearly opposite the
town of Utica. Some distance up the river is a longer ridge, yet known
as Buffalo Rock, easy of ascent at one end, up which the savages are
said to have chased buffaloes; and precipitous at the other, down which
the frightened beasts plunged to death.
The tenth day of September a mellow autumn sun shone on maize fields
where squaws labored, on lazy old braves sprawled around buffalo robes,
gambling with cherry stones, and on peaceful lodges above which the blue
smoke faintly wavered. It was so warm the fires were nearly out. Young
warriors of the tribes were away on an expedition; but the populous
Indian town swarmed with its thousands.
Father Ribourde and Father Membre had that morning withdrawn a league up
the river to make what they called a retreat for prayer and meditation.
The other Frenchmen were divided between lodge and garden.
Near this living town was the town of the dead, a hamlet of scaffolds,
where, wrapped in skins, above the reach of wolves, Illinois Indians of
a past generation slept their winters and summers away. Crows flapped
across them and settled on the corn, causing much ado among the papooses
who were set to shout and rattle sticks for the protection of the crop.
Suddenly a man ran into camp, having just leaped from the canoe which
brought him across the river. When he had talked an instant old braves
bounded to their feet with furious cries, the tribes flocked out of
lodges, and women and children caught the panic and came screeching.
"What is the matter?" exclaimed Tonty, unable to understand their rapid
jargon. The Frenchmen drew together with the instinct of uniting in
peril, and, led by old men, the Indian mob turned on them.
"What is it?" cried Tonty.
"The Iroquois are coming! The Iroquois are coming to eat us up! These
Frenchmen have brought the Iroquois upon us!"
"Will you stand off!" Tonty warned them. And every brave in the town
knew what they called the medicine hand in his right gauntlet, powerful
and hard as a war club. They stood in awe of it as something more than
human. He put his followers behind him. The Frenchmen crowded back to
back, facing the savage crowd. Hampered by his imperfect knowledge of
their language, he hearkened intently to the jangle of raging voices,
his keen dark eyes sweeping from face to face. Tonty was a man of
impressive presence, who inspired confidence even in Indians. They held
back from slaying him and his people, but fiercely accused him. Young
braves dragged from the French lodge the goods and forge saved from Fort
Crevecoeur, and ran yelling to heave everything into the river.
"The Iroquois are your friends! The Iroquois are at peace with the
French! But they are marching here to eat us up!"
"We know nothing about the Iroquois!" shouted Tonty. "If they are coming
we will go out with you to fight them!"
Only half convinced, but panic-stricken from former encounters with a
foe who always drove them off their land, they turned from threatening
Tonty and ran to push out their canoes. Into these were put the women
and children, with supplies, and all were paddled down river to an
island, where guards could be set. The warriors then came back and
prepared for fighting. They greased their bodies, painted their faces,
made ready their weapons, and danced and howled to excite one another
to courage. All night fires along shore, and leaping figures, were
reflected in the dark river.
About dawn, scouts who had been sent to watch the Iroquois came running
with news that the enemy were almost in sight across the prairie on the
opposite side, slipping under cover of woods along a small branch of the
Illinois River. They had guns, pistols, and swords, and carried bucklers
of rawhide. The scouts declared that a Jesuit priest and La Salle
himself led them.
The Frenchmen's lives seemed hardly a breath long. In the midst of
maddened, screeching savages Tonty and his men once more stood back to
back, and he pushed off knives with his copper hand.
"Do you want to kill yourselves?" he shouted. "If you kill us, the
French governor will not leave a man of you alive! I tell you Monsieur
de la Salle is not with the Iroquois, nor is any priest leading them!
Do you not remember the good Father Marquette? Would such men as he
lead tribes to fight one another? If all the Iroquois had stolen French
clothes, you would think an army of Jesuits and Messieurs de la Salle
were coming against you!"
"But some one has brought the Iroquois upon us!"
"I told you before we know nothing about the Iroquois! But we will go
with you now to fight them!"
At that the Illinois put their knives in their belts and ran shouting to
throw themselves into the canoes. Warfare with American Indians was
always the rush of a mob, where every one acted for himself without
military order.
"It is well the good friars are away making their retreat," said Tonty
to Boisrondet and Etienne Renault while they paddled as fast as they
could across the river with the Illinois. "Poor old L'Esperance must be
making a retreat, too."
"I have not myself seen him since last night," Boisrondet remembered.
"He put out in a canoe when the Indians were embarking their women and
children," said Etienne Renault. "I saw him go."
And so it proved afterwards. But L'Esperance had slipped away to bring
back Father Membre and Father Ribourde to tend the wounded and dying.
[Illustration: Long House of the Iroquois.]
Having crossed the river and reached the prairie, Tonty and his allies
saw the Iroquois. They came prancing and screeching on their savage
march, and would have been ridiculous if they had not been appalling.
These Hodenosaunee, or People of the Long House, as they called
themselves, were the most terrible force in the New World. Tonty saw
at once it would go hard with the Illinois nation. Never at any time
as hardy as their invaders, who by frequent attacks had broken their
courage, and weakened by the absence of their best warriors, they
wavered in their first charge.
He put down his gun and offered to carry a peace belt to the Iroquois to
stop the fight. The Illinois gladly gave him a wampum girdle and sent a
young Indian with him. Boisrondet and Etienne Renault also walked at his
side into the open space between two barbaric armies. The Iroquois did
not stop firing when he held up and waved the belt in his left hand.
Bullets spattered on the hummocky sod of the prairie around him.
"Go back," Tonty said to Boisrondet and Renault and the young Indian.
"What need is there of so many? Take the lad back, Boisrondet."
They hesitated to leave him.