The October of the Mississippi valley—full of mild nights and mellow days and the shine of ripened corn—next morning floated all the region around Fort St. Louis in silver vapor. The two small cannon on the Rock began to roar salutes as soon as Tonty’s line of canoes appeared moving down the river.

To Barbe this was an enchanted land. She sat by the Demoiselle Bellefontaine and watched its populous beauty unfold. Blue lodge-smoke arose everywhere. Tonty pointed out the Shawnee settlement eastward, and the great town of the Illinois northwest of the Rock,—a city of high lodges shaped like the top of a modern emigrant wagon. He told where Piankishaws and Weas might be distinguished, how many Shawanoes were settled beyond the ravine back of the Rock, and how many thousand people, altogether, were collected in this principality of Monsieur de la Salle.

A castellated cliff with turrets of glittering sandstone towered above the boats, but beyond that,—round, bold, and isolated, its rugged breasts decked with green, its base washed by the river,—the Rock[22] of St. Louis waited whatever might be coming in its eternal leisure. Frenchmen and Indians leaped upon earthworks at its top and waved a welcome side by side, the flag of France flying above their heads.

At Barbe’s right hand lay an alluvial valley bordered by a ridge of hills a mile away. Along this ancient river-bed Indian women left off gathering maize from standing stalks, and ran joyfully crying out to receive their victorious warriors. Inmates poured from the settlement of French cabins opposite and around the Rock. With cannon booming overhead, Tonty passed its base followed by the people who were to ascend with him, and landed west of it, on a sandy strip where the voyager could lay his hand on that rugged fern-tufted foundation. Barbe and the Demoiselle Bellefontaine followed him along a path cut through thickets, around moss-softened irregular heights of sandstone, girdled in below and bulging out above, so that no man could obtain foothold to scale them. Gnarled tree-roots, like folds of snakes caught between closing strata, hung, writhed in and out. The path, under pine needles and fallen leaves, was cushioned with sand white as powdered snow. Behind the Rock, stretching toward a ravine, were expanses of this lily sand which looked fresh from the hands of the Maker, as if even a raindrop had never indented its whiteness.

Three or four foot-holes were cut in the southeast flank of rock wall. An Indian ran down from above and flung a rope over to Tonty. He mounted these rocky stirrups first, helped by the rope, and knelt to reach back for Barbe and the Demoiselle Bellefontaine. The next ascent was up water-terraced rock to an angle as high as their waists. Here two more stirrups were cut in the rock. Ferns brushed their faces, and shrubs stooped over them. The heights were studded thick with gigantic trees half-stripped of leaves. Rust-colored lichens and lichens hoary like blanched old men, spread their great seals on stone and soil.

Wide water-terraced steps, looking as if cut for a temple, ascended at last to the gate. Through this Tonty led his charge upon a dimpled sward, for care had been taken to keep turf alive in Fort St. Louis.

Recognition and joy were the first sensations of many immigrants entering, as the people they loved received them. But Barbe felt only delicious freedom in such a crag castle. There was a sound of the sea in pine trees all around. The top of the Rock was nearly an acre in extent. It was fortified by earthworks, except the cliff above the river, which was set with palisades and the principal dwellings of the fort. There were besides, a storehouse, a block-house, and several Indian lodges. But the whole space—so shaded yet so sunny, reared high in air yet sheltered as a nest—was itself such a temple of security that any buildings within it seemed an impertinence. The centre, bearing its flagstaff, was left open.

Two priests, a RÉcollet and a Sulpitian, met Tonty and the girl he led in, the Sulpitian receiving her in his arms and bestowing a kiss on her forehead.

“Oh, my uncle AbbÉ!” Barbe gasped with surprise. “Is Colin with you? Is my uncle La Salle here?”

But Tonty, swifter than the AbbÉ’s reply, laid hold of the RÉcollet Father and drew him beside AbbÉ Cavelier, demanding without greeting or pause for courteous compliment,—

“Is Monsieur de la Salle safe and well? You both come from Monsieur de la Salle!”

“He was well when we parted from him,” replied the AbbÉ Cavelier, looking at a bunch of maiden-hair fern which Barbe had caught from a ledge and tucked in the bosom of her gown. “We left him on the north branch of the Trinity River, Monsieur de Tonty.”

The RÉcollet said nothing, but kept his eyes fixed on his folded hands. Tonty, too eager to mark well both bearers of such news, demanded again impartially,—

“And he was well?”

“He left us in excellent health, monsieur.”

“How glad I am to find you in Fort St. Louis!” exclaimed Tonty. “This is the first direct message I have had from Monsieur de la Salle since he sailed from France. How many men are in your party? Have you been made comfortable?”

“Only six, monsieur. We have been made quite comfortable by your officer Bellefontaine.”

“Monsieur the AbbÉ, where did Monsieur de la Salle land his colony?”

“On a western coast of the Gulf, monsieur. It was most unfortunate. Ever since he has been searching for the Mississippi.”

“While I searched for him. Oh, Fathers!” Tonty’s voice deepened and his swarthy joyful face set its contrast opposite two downcast churchmen, “nothing in Fort St. Louis is good enough for messengers from Monsieur de la Salle. What can I do for you? Did he send me no orders?”

“He did commit a paper to my hand, naming skins and merchandise that he would have delivered to me, as well as a canoe and provisions for our journey to New France.”

“Come, let me see this paper,” demanded Tonty. “Whatever Monsieur de la Salle orders shall be done at once; but the season is now so advanced you will not push on to New France until spring.”

“That is the very reason, Monsieur de Tonty, why we should push on at once. We have waited a month for your return. I leave Fort St. Louis with my party to-morrow, if you will so forward my wishes.”

“Monsieur the AbbÉ, it is impossible! You have yet told me nothing of all it is necessary for me to know touching Monsieur de la Salle.”

“To-morrow,” repeated the AbbÉ Cavelier, “I must set out at dawn, if you can honor my brother’s paper.”

Tonty, with a gesture of his left hand, led the way to his quarters across the esplanade. As Barbe walked behind the RÉcollet Father, she wondered why he had given no answer to any of Tonty’s questions.

Her brother advanced to meet her, and she ran and gave him her hands and her cheek to kiss. They had been apart four years, and looked at each other with scrutinizing gaze. He overtopped her by a head. Barbe expected to find him tall and rudely masculine, but there was change in him for which she was not prepared.

“My sister has grown charming,” pronounced Colin. “Not as large as the Caveliers usually are, but like a bird exquisite in make and graceful motion.”

“Oh, Colin, what is the matter?” demanded Barbe, with direct dart. “I see concealment in your face!”

“What do you see concealed? Perhaps you will tell me that.” He became mottled with those red and white spots which are the blood’s protest against the will.

“The RÉcollet Father did not answer a word to Monsieur de Tonty’s questions, Colin; and the voice of my uncle the AbbÉ sounded unnatural. Is there wicked power in those countries you have visited to make you all come back like men half asleep from some drug?”

“Yes, there is!” exclaimed the boy; “I hate that wilderness. When we are once in France I will never venture into such wilds again. They dull me until my tongue seems dead.”

“And, Colin, you did leave my uncle La Salle quite well?”

“It was he who left us. He was in excellent health the last time we saw him.” The boy spoke these words with precision, and Barbe sighed her relief.

“For myself,” she said, “I love this wild world. I shall stay here until my uncle La Salle arrives.”

“Our uncle the AbbÉ will decide that,” replied Colin. “It is unfortunate that you left Montreal. Your only hope of staying here rests on the hard journey before us, and the risks we run of meeting winter on the way. I wish you had been sent to France. I wish we were all in France now.” Colin’s face relaxed wistfully.

Two crows were scolding in the trees below them. Barbe felt ready to weep; as if the tender spirit of autumn had stolen through her, as mists steal along the hills. She sat down on the grassy earthwork, and Colin picked some pine needles from a branch and stood silent beside her, chewing them.

But those vague moods which haunt girlhood held always short dominion over Barbe. She was in close kinship with the world around, and the life of the fort began to occupy her.

The Rock was like a small fair with its additional inhabitants, who were still running about in a confusion of joyful noises. Children, delighted to be freed from canoes at so bright a time of day, raced across the centre, or hid behind wigwam or tree, calling to each other. An Indian stalked across to the front of the Rock, and Barbe watched him reach out through an opening in the low log palisade. A platform was there built on the trunks of two leaning cedars. The Indian unwound a windlass and let down a bucket to the river below. She heard its distant splash and some of its resounding drips on the way up. Living in Fort St. Louis was certainly like living on a cloud.

“I will go into the officers’ house,” suggested Colin, “and see how the AbbÉ’s demands are met by Monsieur de Tonty. We shall then know if we are to set out for Quebec to-morrow.”