“Fort Lewis is in the country of the Illinois and seated on a steep Rock about two hundred Foot high, the River running at the Bottom of it. It is only fortified with Stakes and Palisades, and some Houses advancing to the Edge of the Rock. It has a very spacious Esplanade, or Place of Arms. The Place is naturally strong, and might be made so by Art, with little expence. Several of the Natives live in it, in their Huts. I cannot give an Account of the Latitude it stands in, for want of proper Instruments to take an Observation, but Nothing can be pleasanter; and it may be truly affirmed that the Country of the Illinois enjoys all that can make it accomplished, not only as to Ornament, but also for its plentiful Production of all Things requisite for the Support of human Life.

“The Plain, which is watered by the River, is beautified by two small Hills about half a League distant from the Fort, and those Hills are cover’d with groves of Oaks, Walnut-Trees, and other Sorts I have named elsewhere. The Fields are full of Grass, growing up very high. On the Sides of the Hills is found a gravelly Sort of Stone, very fit to make Lime for Building. There are also many Clay Pits, fit for making of Earthen Ware, Bricks, and Tiles, and along the River there are Coal Pits, the Coal whereof has been try’d and found very good.”[17]

The young man lifted his pen from the paper and stood up beside a box in the storehouse which had served him as table, at the demand of a priestly voice.

“Joutel, what are you writing there?”

“Monsieur the AbbÉ, I was merely setting down a few words about this Fort St. Louis of the Illinois in which we are sheltered. But my candle is so nearly burned out I will put the leaves aside.”

“You were writing nothing else?” insisted La Salle’s brother, setting his shoulders against the storehouse door.

“Not a word, monsieur.”

The AbbÉ’s ragged cassock scarcely showed such wear as his face, which the years that had handled him could by no means have cut into such deep grooves or moulded into such ghastly hillocks of features.

“I cannot sleep to-night, Joutel,” said the AbbÉ Cavelier.

“I thought you were made very comfortable in the house,” remarked Joutel.

“What can make me comfortable now?”

They stood still, saying nothing, while a candle waved its feeble plume with uncertainty over its marsh of tallow, making their huge shadows stagger over log-wall or floor or across piled merchandise. One side of the room was filled with stacked buffalo hides, on which Joutel, nightly, took the complete rest he had earned by long tramping in southern woods.

He rested his knuckles on the box and looked down. A Norman follower of the Caveliers, he had done La Salle good service, but between the AbbÉ and him lay a reason for silence.

“Tonty may reach the Rock at any time,”[18] complained the AbbÉ to the floor, though his voice must reach Joutel’s ears. “There is nothing I dread more than meeting Tonty.”

“We can leave the Rock before Monsieur de Tonty arrives,” said Joutel, repeating a suggestion he had made many times.

“Certainly, without the goods my brother would have him deliver to me, without a canoe or any provision whatever for our journey!”

“They say here that Monsieur de Tonty led only two hundred Indians and fifty Frenchmen to aid the new governor in his war against the Iroquois,” observed Joutel. “He may not come back at all.”

“I have thought of that,” the AbbÉ mused. “If Tonty be dead we are indeed wasting our time here, when we ought to be well on our way to Quebec, to say naught of the voyage to France. But this fellow in charge of the Rock refuses to honor my demands without more authority.”

“He received us most kindly, and we have been his guests a month,” said Joutel.

“I would be his guest no longer than this passing night if my difficulties were solved,” said the AbbÉ. “For there is even Colin’s sister to torment me. I know not where she is,—whether in Montreal or in the wilderness between Montreal and this fort. If I had taken her back with Colin to France, she would now be safe with my mother. There was another evidence of my poor brother’s madness! He was determined Mademoiselle Cavelier should be sent out to Fort St. Louis. When he sailed on that last great voyage, he sat in one of the ships the king furnished him and in the last lines he wrote his mother refused to tell her his destination! And at the same time he wrote instructions to the nuns of St. Joseph concerning the niece whose guardian he never was. She must be sent to Fort St. Louis at the first safe opportunity! She was to have a grant in this country to replace her fortune which he had used. And this he only told me during his fever at St. Domingo on the voyage.”

Joutel folded and put away his notes. The AbbÉ’s often repeated complaints seldom stirred a reply from him. Though on this occasion he thought of saying,—

“Monsieur de Tonty may bring news of her from Montreal.”

“You understand, Joutel,” exclaimed the AbbÉ, approaching the candle, “that it is best,—that it is necessary not to tell Tonty what we know?”

“I have understood what you said, Monsieur the AbbÉ.”

“You are the only man who gives me anxiety. All the rest are willing to keep silence. Is it not my affair? I wish you would cease writing your scraps. It irritates me to come into this storehouse and find you writing your scraps.” He looked severely at the young man, who leaned against the box making no further promise or reply. Then seizing the candle, the AbbÉ stepped to a bed made of bales, where, wrapped in skins and blankets, young Colin Cavelier lay uttering the acknowledgement of peaceful sleep. Another boy lay similarly wrapped on the floor beside him.

The priest’s look at these two was brief. He went on to the remaining man in the room, a hairy fellow, lying coiled among hides and pressed quite into a corner. The man appeared unconscious, emitting his breath in short puffs.

AbbÉ Cavelier gazed upon him with shudders.

The over-taxed candle flame stooped and expired, the scent of its funeral pile rising from a small red point in darkness.