Part 17 (1/2)

”The Senecas are his tribe of the Iroquois, mademoiselle. He was among them; but he has left his people for my sake. These Indians have visions and obey them. He said the time had come for him to follow me.”

”Sanomp was then the Indian I saw creeping toward your tent. Did he fight against his own people?”

”No, mademoiselle. While Du Lhut and I flew to rouse the camp, he sat doggedly down where he found me. This was a last chance for the Senecas.

We are so near Fort St. Louis, and almost within shouting distance of our Miamis on Buffalo Rock. Such security makes sentinels careless.

Sanomp crept ahead of the others and whispered in my ear, taking his chance of being brained before I understood him. He has proved himself my friend and brother, mademoiselle, to do this for me, and moreover to bear the shame of sitting crouched like a squaw through a fray.”

”Everybody loves and fears Monsieur de Tonty,”[20] observed Barbe, with sedate accent.

Tonty breathed deeply.

”Am I an object of fear to you, mademoiselle? Doubtless I have grown like a buffalo,” he ruminated. ”Perhaps you feel a natural aversion toward a man bearing a hand of iron.”

”On the contrary, it seemed a great convenience among the Indians,”

murmured Barbe, and Tonty laughed and stood silent.

The camp was again settling to rest, and fewer swarming figures peopled the darkness. Winding and aspiring through new fuel the camp-fire once more began to lift its impalpable pavilion, and groups sat around it beneath that canopy of tremulous light, with rapid talk and gesture repeating to each other their impressions of the Senecas' attack.

”Mademoiselle,” said Tonty, lifting his left hand to his bare head, for he had rushed hatless into action, ”good-night. The guards are doubled. You are more secure than when you lay down before.”

”Good-night, monsieur,” replied Barbe, and he opened her tent for her, when she turned back.

”Monsieur de Tonty,” she whispered swiftly, ”I have had no chance during this long journey,--for with you alone would I speak of it,--to demand if you believe that saying against yourself which they are wickedly charging to my uncle La Salle?”

”Mademoiselle, how could I believe that Monsieur de la Salle said in France he wished to be rid of me? One laughs at a rumor like that.”

”The tales lately told about his madness are more than I can bear.”

”Mademoiselle, Monsieur de la Salle's enemies always called his great enterprises madness.”

”Can you imagine where he now is, Monsieur de Tonty?”

”Oh, heavens!” Tonty groaned. ”Often have I said to myself,--Has Monsieur de la Salle been two years in America, and I have not joined him, or even spoken with him? It is not my fault! As soon as I believed he had reached the Gulf of Mexico I descended the Mississippi. I searched all those countries, every cape and every sh.o.r.e. I demanded of all the natives where he was, and not one could tell me a word. Judge of my pain and my dolor.”[21]

They stood in such silence as could result from two people's ceasing to murmur in the midst of high-pitched voices.

”Monsieur de Tonty,” resumed Barbe, ”do you remember Jeanne le Ber?”

”Mademoiselle, I never saw her.”

”She refused my uncle La Salle at Fort Frontenac, and I detested her for it. In the new church at Montreal she has had a cell made behind the altar. There she prays day and night. She wears only a blanket, but the nun who feeds her says her face is like an angel's. Monsieur, Jeanne le Ber fell with her head b.u.mping the floor,--and I understood her. She had a spirit fit to match with my uncle La Salle's. She thought she was right. I forgave her then, for I know, monsieur, she loved my uncle La Salle.”

When Barbe had spoken such daring words she stepped inside her tent and dropped its curtain.

FOOTNOTES:

[19] ”On his return he brought back with him the families of a number of French immigrants, soldiers, and traders. This arrival of the wives, sisters, children, and sweethearts of some of the colonists, after years of separation, was the occasion of great rejoicing.”--John Moses' History of Illinois.

[20] ”He was loved and feared by all,” says St. Cosme.