Spring and summer passed quietly along the Illinois River. Tonty and his combined army had not yet returned from the Iroquois war; and those who had stayed at home to protect the fort and villages found no invaders to molest them. Boisrondet, the commissary of the fort, was busy with the fields of the French. The Indians, too, planted their crops and tended them. The braves visited the little garrison from time to time, hunted and fished some, gambled with cherry-stones more, and basked in the sun most of all.
September was half gone, and still there was nothing to break the monotony. The fourteenth of the month was Sunday, and perhaps in the fort the black-robed Father Allouez, sick and confined to his room, took some notice of the day. But to the Indians, one day was like another. It so happened that a group of them early in the afternoon were in the fields down the river from the fort. Suddenly one of their number, a Shawnee named Turpin, looking off to the stream sparkling in the sun, saw an Indian dugout approaching. In a moment he was at the water’s edge scanning with eager eyes the occupants of the bark. They came nearer, were even with him, passed by upstream; but he recognized no one of them. There was a strapping big Frenchman, two men in priestly robes, two other white men, and several strange Indians. Where had these men come from? No one knew of their going down the river.
When the strangers had passed, Turpin slipped across the fields and again came to the bank of the river higher up. This time the men in the dugout called to him. They were of the party of La Salle, they said. For a while the Indian studied them intently. Then catching the name La Salle, he was off on the dead run to the fort. Up the steep pathway he went as if on wings, and burst into the palisaded entrance with the cry that La Salle was coming.
Out of the inclosure with a bound jumped Boisrondet and the blacksmith, and down the side of the rock and around the base to the bank of the river they went faster than the Indian had come. Another Frenchman and a group of Indians were ahead of them, however, and were already leading the white men to the fort. Full of surprise and joy Boisrondet and his comrade embraced the strangers, who were five in number. The quick eye of Boisrondet ran over all of them, then looked back toward the river.
“But where is La Salle?” he asked. Of the two men who replied, one was a heavy-built, honest-faced man, the other a priest. The priest was the Abbé Cavelier, an own brother of La Salle; his companion was Henri Joutel, a trusted follower of the lost chief. La Salle, they said, had accompanied them part of the way and had left them at a place about forty leagues from the village of the Cenis; and when he left them he was in good health.
If there was anything peculiar about their reply Boisrondet did not at the time seriously note it. Nor did he notice the silence of the gray-robed friar who stood beside the speakers. He was too full of joy at news from his chief, and listened with ready ear as they added that they had orders from La Salle to go on to France to report his travels and bring aid.
It was two o’clock in the afternoon when, after their exchange of greetings, the whole party climbed to the fort towering high above the landscape. Volleys from the guns of the garrison saluted them, and the commander, Bellefontaine, came forward to greet them. Then the strangers crossed over to the little chapel to give thanks on that September Sabbath for their safe arrival among friends.
Father Allouez, who lay sick in his room, received with alarm the news that a party of La Salle’s men had arrived at the fort. Was La Salle among them? With great relief he learned that he was not. Allouez sent word that he would like to talk with some of the party; and so La Salle’s brother and the quiet Father Douay, together with Joutel, entered the sick man’s chamber.
At first they talked of other matters—of affairs in far-away France, of the stamping-out of the heresy of Calvinism, and of the twenty ............