lly loved, and supported us by his example in
devotion."

On the Chicago portage a little boy, given to the missionary perhaps
because he was an orphan and the western country offered him the best
chances in life, started eagerly ahead, though he was told to wait. The
rest of the party, having goods and canoes to carry from the Chicago
River to the Desplaines, lost sight of him, and he was never seen again.
Autumn grass grew tall over the marshy portage, but they dared not set
it afire, though his fate was doubtless hidden in that grass. The party
divided and searched for him, calling and firing guns. Three days they
searched, and daring to wait no longer, for it was November and the
river ready to glaze with ice, they left him to some French people at
the post of Chicago. But the child was not found. He disappeared and no
one ever knew what became of him.

Like this is Henri de Tonty's disappearance from history. The records
show him working with Le Moyne D'Iberville and Le Moyne de Bienville to
found New Orleans and Mobile, pushing the enterprises which La Salle had
begun. He has been blamed with the misbehavior of a relative of his,
Alphonse de Tonty, who got into disgrace at the post of Detroit. Little
justice has been done to the memory of this man, who should not be
forgotten in the west. So quietly did he slip out of life that his
burial place is unknown. Some people believe that he came back to the
Rock long after its buildings were dismantled and it had ceased to be
Fort St. Louis of the Illinois. Others say he died in Mobile. But it is
probable that both La Salle and Tonty left their bodies to the
wilderness which their invincible spirits had conquered.

After the settlement of Kaskaskia a strong fortress was built sixteen
miles above, on the same side of the Mississippi. The king of France
spent a million crowns strengthening this place, which was called Fort
Chartres. Its massive walls, inclosing four acres, and its buildings and
arched gateway were like some medieval stronghold strangely transplanted
from the Old World. White uniformed troops paraded. A village sprang up
around it. Fort Chartres was the center of government until Kaskaskia
became the first capital of the Illinois territory. Applications for
land had to be made at this post. Indians on the Mississippi, for it was
a little distance from the shore, heard drumbeat and sunset gun, and
were proud of going in and out of its mighty gateway under