Part 18 (1/2)
”Only six, monsieur. We have been made quite comfortable by your officer Bellefontaine.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”And he was well?”--_Page 192._]
”Monsieur the Abbe, 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 Abbe, 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 Abbe 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 Recollet 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,” p.r.o.nounced 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 Recollet Father did not answer a word to Monsieur de Tonty's questions, Colin; and the voice of my uncle the Abbe 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 Abbe 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 gra.s.sy 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 kins.h.i.+p 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 windla.s.s 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.