an to stretch a poor existence through a century. The contagion of his
hardihood stole out like the Christmas incense and spread through the
chapel.

V.

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS.

"It was the establishment of military posts throughout this vast valley
that eventually brought on a life struggle between the English and the
French," says a historian.

At first the only spot of civilization in boundless wilderness was
Tonty's little fort on the Illinois. Protected by it, the Indians went
hunting and brought in buffalo skins and meat; their women planted
and reaped maize; children were born; days came and went; autumn haze
made the distances pearly; winter snow lay on the wigwams; men ran on
snowshoes; and papooses shouted on the frozen river. Still no news came
from La Salle.

[Illustration: MAP OF THE FRENCH SETTLEMENTS.]

Tonty had made a journey to the mouth of the Mississippi to meet him,
after he landed with his colony, searching thirty leagues in each
direction along the coast. La Salle was at that time groping through a
maze of lagoons in Texas. Tonty, with his men, waded swamps to their
necks, enduring more suffering than he had ever endured in his life
before. This was in February of the year 1686. Finding it impossible to
reach La Salle, who must be wandering somewhere on the Gulf of Mexico,
Tonty wrote a letter to him, intrusting it to the hands of an Indian
chief, with directions that it be delivered when the explorer appeared.
He also left a couple of men who were willing to wait in the Arkansas
villages to meet La Salle.

Two years passed before those men brought positive proof of the
undespairing Norman's fate. The remnant of the party that started with
La Salle from Fort St. Louis of Texas spent one winter at Fort St. Louis
of the Illinois, bringing word that they had left their leader in good
health on the coast. The Abbe Cavelier even collected furs in his
brother's name, and went on to France, carrying his secret with him.

La Salle had been assassinated on the Trinity River, soon after setting
out on his last determined search for the Mississippi. The eighteenth
day of March, 1687, some of his brutal voyageurs hid themselves in
bushes and shot him.

So slowly did events move then, and so powerless was man, an atom in the
wilderness, that the great-hearted Italian, weeping aloud in rage and
grief, realized that La Salle's bones had been bleaching a year and a
half before the news of his dea