Throughout the fight Tonty’s life hung upon a thread. An impetuous Onondaga had stabbed him in the side, but fortunately the knife had glanced from a rib. Another Indian seized him by the hair; and a third raised his hat upon a gun. Then one of the chiefs recognized him as a white man and intervened. He was carried into the midst of the camp, where the chiefs gathered about him and heard his plea for peace. The Illinois, said Tonty, were just as much the friends of the governor of Canada as were the Iroquois. Why should the Iroquois make war upon them?
It was an unquiet parley. Behind Tonty stood an Indian warrior with ready knife; and now and then as they talked he wound his fingers in the white man’s hair and raised his black locks as if to scalp him. Outside of the circle the fight went on. Then came the report that Iroquois men were killed and wounded and that the left side was yielding. Dismayed, the chiefs asked their white captive how many men were in the fight. Tonty, seeing a chance to prevent hostilities, replied that there were twelve hundred Illinois and that fifty Frenchmen were fighting with them. Overcome with consternation at these figures, the chiefs hastened to give Tonty the present of wampum and beg him to make peace for the Iroquois.
The Illinois with their wounded white leader and his two men turned back to the village. A league from home they came upon Father Membré hurrying out to meet them. The sound of guns had brought him from his cabin in the fields back of the town. They crossed the river together, and Tonty was glad enough to lie down in one of the lodges and let the priest and young men tend his wound.
Scarcely had the Illinois reached their lodges when, looking back, they saw little groups of Iroquois on the other side of the river. A few of these soon found means of crossing, and they hovered near the village in a pretense of seeking food. But the Illinois, who were not children in the art of Indian warfare, were well aware of the ways of the treacherous Iroquois, and they watched these straggling bands with gloomy foreboding.
By a magnificent sally the Illinois had daunted their enemy, and Tonty’s exaggeration of their numbers had completed the impression of their power in the minds of the Iroquois. But the Illinois well knew that they were no match for the Iroquois with their abundance of arms and ammunition and their allies, the Miamis. Sooner or later the Iroquois would learn the true numbers of the villagers. Then the fierce warriors of the Five Nations would harry them until they found an opportunity to crush them out of existence. Massacres, tortures, and burnings could be their only possible end if they stayed in the village. After their warriors were slain, what of the women and children, anxiously waiting in the secluded refuge down the river?
Tonty and his men were probably safe, for the Iroquois had too much fear of the French in Canada to harm them without great provocation. But the Illinois were not safe. So they deserted their village, took to their pirogues, and passed downstream to join their wives and old men.
In their hearts the Indians saw the wisdom of flight, for they knew what had happened in the past. They did not forget the fate of other nations whom the Iroquois had practically exterminated. Would the invasion of the Illinois country have any other end? Yet it was with heavy and reluctant hearts that they gave up their lodges to the hated foe; and bands of warriors trailed back up the river for another look at their one-time home. Appearing on the hills a short distance behind the village they gazed down upon the ruined lodges which had been fired by the Iroquois, who had piled timber and half-burned posts in the form of a rude fort. In a lodge some distance away Tonty had been left still suffering from his wound and attended by his five men.
More and more of the Illinois gathered on the hill, until the array of warriors alarmed the Iroquois, who still nursed the belief that twelve hundred Illinois were haunting their rear. The Illinois continued their watch day by day and presently saw two men leave the town and climb the hill toward them. They soon distinguished the peculiar swing of their friend Tonty. With him was an Iroquois Indian. Joyfully they welcomed him and listened to his message. The Iroquois wished to make a treaty of peace and had sent one of their men as a hostage.
The Illinois in turn sent back with Tonty one of their own young men, and negotiations were soon begun. But the peacemaker had been badly chosen, for the young Indian, eager for a treaty of peace, promised everything and finally revealed to the Iroquois the true number of the Illinois warriors. The Iroquois said little to the Illinois messenger, but sent him back to his people that night to tell the chiefs to come next day within half a league of the fort and conclude the peace. Then they turned on Tonty with wrath and reproaches for having deceived them.
The next day at noon Illinois and Iroquois met not far from the village. The Iroquois, hiding their true plans, gave presents to their late opponents and bound themselves to a firm and lasting peace. But Tonty, who was not misled, managed to send Father Membré to the Illinois to tell them that the peace was only a pretense, that the Iroquois were making elm-bark canoes, and that if the Illinois did not flee at once they would be followed and their whole tribe massacred.
At night the Iroquois called Tonty and Father Membré into the rude fort, and having seated the white leader they laid before him presents consisting of six bundles of valuable beaver skins. By the first two presents the Iroquois meant to inform Governor Frontenac that they would not eat his children and that he should not be angry at what they had done. The third bundle of skins was to be a plaster for the white man’s wound. The fourth represented oil to be rubbed on the white men’s limbs because of the long journeys they had taken. With the fifth they told Tonty how bright the sun was; and with the sixth they said that he should profit by it and return the next day to the French settlements.
“When are you going to leave the Illinois country?” asked the dauntless white man.
“Not until we have eaten these Illinois,” replied the angered chiefs.
With a quick motion of his foot Tonty kicked the beaver skins from him—an unpardonable offense among Indians. Angry looks and gesticulations from the Indians greeted this act, but they hesitated to lay hands upon Tonty for he was a friend of Frontenac, the powerful governor of New France. Perhaps, too, they realized, better even than did the Illinois, the power of his heavy right hand, for he had lived in the land of the Iroquois before he had come out into these Western wilds.
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