THE GATHERING OF THE TRIBES

On the south bank of the river Illinois, a mile or more above the plain where lay the deserted village of the Kaskaskias, a great rock rose sheer from the water to a height of over a hundred feet. Three sides of the rock were like the walls of a mediÆval castle. At the fourth side by a rugged pathway one might climb laboriously from behind to the level top where oaks and cedars grew.

In the month of January, 1683, this rock was the scene of busy doings. On the scant acre of ground upon its summit, Frenchmen had felled trees and were building cabins and storehouses and palisaded walls and erecting a fortification about the whole area. Up the steep pathway other Frenchmen and stalwart Indians were dragging timbers to aid in the construction of fort and dwellings. Moving here and there among the men was the dominant figure of La Salle; and yonder were the iron-handed Tonty and his friend Boisrondet. Many of the Frenchmen had been with La Salle on his trip to the Gulf the year before; and the busy Indians were his faithful band of Mohegans and Abenakis.

La Salle had reached Mackinac after his arduous trip to the sea, with little strength left, but with many plans for the future. He had explored the river to the mouth. It now remained for him to make use of the Great Valley. His enemies, the rich merchants of Quebec and Montreal, had become so bitter in their opposition to him that he knew it would be difficult to carry out his plans from Canada as a base. And so he determined to cut loose as soon as possible from the valley of the St. Lawrence and bring his supplies and men by sea from France to the mouth of the Mississippi, thence up the river to the trading-posts which he would found among the tribes along its banks.

Such was the vision that rose before La Salle day and night—a vision of the long river valley held together by a chain of forts and depots for the fur trade, of friendly Indians coming with their canoes laden with furs to exchange with the French for merchandise, of French settlements growing up in the wilderness, of a great post at the mouth of the river, and of swift-sailing ships plying between the Gulf and far-away France.

But to bring this vision to reality La Salle must first repopulate the Illinois Valley and unite the Indian tribes of that region to repel the bands of Iroquois who threatened again to invade the valley of the Great River. So he sent Tonty out from Mackinac, in the fall of 1682, to begin a fort around which they might gather a colony of the far-scattered tribes. Not long afterward, La Salle, hearing fresh rumors of an Iroquois invasion, sent Father MembrÉ on to Canada and France to report the exploration of the Mississippi, and then joined Tonty on the Illinois River.

Many times in their journeyings up and down the Illinois, La Salle and Tonty had noted the high rock rising from the riverside near the Kaskaskia village. What a rallying-point this would make for the scattered people! La Salle was well content to build here his wilderness fort; and without waiting for winter to loosen its icy grip upon the land he put his men, red-skinned and white, at work.

They were many weeks building the citadel upon the rock; and when, toward spring, it was finished, La Salle and Tonty looked out upon the country roundabout with a feeling of great security. In the river below them was a small island, and here they prepared to plant their crops. It was within gunshot of the fort, from which a raking fire could prevent any enemy from landing and attacking the men while at work in the fields. Four heavy pieces of timber were placed so as to project over the edge of the rock, and from these, in case of need, water could be drawn straight up from the clear current of the Illinois River.

The fortress completed, there remained the gathering of the tribes. On a day in March, 1683, Tonty climbed down the rugged pathway and set out across the prairies to visit the Indian tribes. Nearly a hundred leagues he trailed from village to village. In the lodges of the Shawnees he told of the return of La Salle to the Illinois Valley and reminded them of their promise to come and join him.

He visited the Miamis and talked of the Iroquois who had killed so many of their braves. Even now rumors of another invasion were in the air. But if the Miamis would come out to the colony of the French they need have no fear, for Ouabicolcata had come again into the valley of the Illinois and on the bank of the river had built a strong fort to guard his brothers the Miamis.

It was many leagues toward the setting sun that Tonty traveled before he found the tribes of the Illinois. But one day he walked into the camp of his old-time companions and seated himself upon their mats. With great joy they received him and gave into his left hand the calumet of peace and feasted him as they had done three years before in their ancient home.

They were wondering, perhaps, if the ice were now breaking up in the river beside the forsaken village and if the snow were melting down to nourish the white-oak trees on the opposite shore. They saw the whole river again as they listened to the words of the Man with the Iron Hand. Well did they know every bend in its course. And what Indian could forget that great pile of rock on the south side of the river a half-league above their old town? Every crevice and seam in its weather-worn sides came back to them. They saw in their minds the ravine on the eastern side where a little brook ran down to the river. They saw again the rugged path that led to the summit; and they tried to picture Frenchmen climbing to the heights where the fort of La Salle now stood. It was a fort to guard them from the Iroquois, said Tonty, if only they would come back and settle in their old haunts. Nor was it difficult to persuade them. La Salle was their father, they said. Only a year ago he had visited them, told them of his plans, and urged them to forgive the Miamis and join with them against the common foe.

Their fear of the Iroquois called them; their love for their father La Salle and their brother Tonty and for the gifts these men brought called them; and perhaps, not least of all, the old village where they had wooed and married their Indian women, where they had brought home scalps and captives, where they had entertained their friends and buried their dead—their home of other days—called them. Yes, they would come back to the river of the Illinois and raise new lodge-poles on the site of their old town in the colony of their father La Salle.

So Tonty returned from his circuit of the tribes and climbed the rock to Fort St. Louis to report to La Salle the coming of the Indians. Soon the tribes began to gather. The Shawnees came with some smaller tribes from the south and settled directly behind the rock. Nor was it many weeks before the Illinois, trailing back through the valley they had given up, came in a great rejoicing army, with their women and their papooses, to the north bank of the river. Strong-armed Indian women raised the poles for new lodges and laid fresh mats upon the framework. They brought wood which they laid in piles down the center of each long lodge; and soon out of holes in a hundred roofs rose the smoke from the fires of the Illinois. They stirred the soil in the neglected fields and planted new crops. As best they could they put to rights the desecrated graves of their dead, and took up again the life they had left off at the time of the Iroquois invasion.

But it was not quite the same to these Illinois, for the blight of overwhelming disaster still lay upon them and fear smoldered deep down in each heart. When they looked up the river to where Fort St. Louis stood guard like a sentinel upon its high rock, they took courage; but when they turned away and looked upon the scenes which they had just redeemed from Iroquois desolation, their hearts sometimes failed them.

Families from all of the tribes of the Illinois Confederacy now gathered in the village, ready to join hands in a common cause with the Shawnees and other nations from the south, and eager to ally themselves once more with the fickle Miamis who were still at their villages to the east.

Only the return of La Salle to the Illinois country had kept the Miamis from leaving their villages near the foot of the Lake and fleeing to the Mississippi; and even now, with Fort St. Louis built and garrisoned and with the Illinois and Shawnees gathered in the vicinity, they were thrown into a panic by news from the St. Lawrence River that the Iroquois were on their way to the valley of the Illinois.

The French and Indians at La Salle’s colony having learned of the Miami alarm, La Salle made ready to go at once to their villages to reassure them. The Illinois, however, looked with dread upon his going, and they tried to dissuade him. Perhaps they recalled too vividly the disasters that followed his departure three years before. Then, too, they had heard evil rumors. The French at Green Bay had told their traders that if the Illinois settled near La Salle, he would abandon them to the Iroquois. The Indians frankly recounted these tales, and La Salle patiently told them of his enemies at Green Bay who wished him ill,—perhaps because they were jealous of his beaver trade,—and he promised them that, although it was important for him to go on from the Miami villages to Canada, he would come back at once if the Iroquois should approach.

Partly reassured they let him go. They did not know what grievous burdens weighed upon La Salle as he took his way eastward. At the fort in charge of Tonty he had left only twenty Frenchmen, with hardly a hundred rounds of powder and ball. Again and again he had sent men down to the Canadian settlements to bring back supplies and ammunition and French volunteers for his garrison. But they had not come back; and La Salle rightly suspected that the new governor, La Barre, who had succeeded Frontenac at Quebec, was in league with his enemies and willing to wreck his colony by preventing his men from returning with supplies and reinforcements. His only hope was to go in person to Canada to secure aid; and this he intended to do after seeing the Miamis.

Finding the Miamis full of terror and ready to fly, he immediately called the chiefs and elders in to a council. If the Miamis, instead of fleeing to the Mississippi, would move over and join his colony at the fort, they would all fight their battles together. He was going East now for reinforcements; but if he should hear of the near approach of the Iroquois, he would join them at Fort St. Louis at once. The Miamis gave attentive ear to La Salle. Was he not their brother Ouabicolcata, raised from the dead to protect them? The next day they began to move in three great armies toward Fort St. Louis, while La Salle went on toward the Lake.

From the Miami camp a hunter started out one day accompanied by his dog. Following a roebuck, he strayed off from his band and was suddenly attacked by four Iroquois and fatally wounded. The dog, seeing his master shot down, began to bark at the top of his lungs. The Iroquois, in alarm, took to their heels. At once the Miamis were hot upon their trail. They followed their tracks until they came to a trail so broadly beaten as to indicate a large army of the enemy. Realizing their lack of numbers, the Miamis retraced their steps and made haste to combine their three armies into one before continuing the journey.

The alarm, meanwhile, had reached the colony about the fort, and war parties of Illinois left their village to meet the oncoming foe. Soon they encountered an Iroquois party of forty and took one of them prisoner. With savage glee they brought him into camp. Perhaps he was one of the hated band that had despoiled their village. It was their turn now for vengeance. They presented the captive to Tonty to be put to death. But Tonty replied that it was not the custom of his people to kill their prisoners of war. Then they offered him to their allies, the Shawnees, who with savage ceremonies burned him to death.

The Illinois had won a victory over the invaders, but it did not bring them security. They wished for the return of La Salle; and Tonty sent off two runners at top speed to tell his chief that if he did not return at once the tribes were likely to melt away to the Far West and out of reach of the Iroquois.

It was not long until the army of the Miamis arrived. A league above the fort, on the north side of the river, was a long rock bluff, and here they settled and put up their lodges. La Salle, true to his promise, soon came back to the colony, much to the joy of both Indians and whites. From his high fort on the rock he now looked down upon Indian villages, with their thousands of Indian braves gathered like the army of a mediÆval baron, and rejoiced in the thought that a long step had been made toward the realization of his dream of the Great Valley.