ir
women and children, while he attempted as long as possible to keep the
invaders at bay. Lodges were set on fire, and the Illinois withdrew
quietly down river, leaving some of their men in the bluffs less than a
league from the town, to bring them word of the result. The Frenchmen,
partially rebuilding their own lodge, which had been wrecked when their
goods were thrown in the river, stood their ground in the midst of
insulting savages.

For the Iroquois, still determined on war and despoiling, opened maize
pits, scattering and burning the grain; trampled corn in the fields; and
even pulled the dead off their scaffolds. They were angry at the French
for threatening them with that invisible power of France, and bent on
chasing the Illinois. Yet Tonty was able to force a kind of treaty
between them and the retreating nation, through the men left in the
bluffs. As soon as they had made it, however, they began canoes of elm
bark, to follow the Illinois down river.

Two or three days passed, while the Frenchmen sat covering the invaded
tribe's retreat. They scarcely slept at night. Their enemies prowled
around their lodge or celebrated dances on the ruins of the town.
The river flowed placidly, and the sun shone on desolation and on
the unaltered ferny buttresses of the great rock and its castellated
neighbors. Tonty heard with half delirious ears the little creatures
which sing in the grass and fly before man, but return to their singing
as soon as he passes by. The friars dressed and tended his fevered
wound, and when the Iroquois sent for him to come to a council, Father
Membre went with him.

Within the rude fort of posts and poles saved from ruined lodges, which
the Iroquois had built for themselves, adding a ruff of freshly chopped
trees, the two white men sat down in a ring of glowering savages. Six
packs of beaver skins were piled ready for the oration; and the orator
rose and addressed Tonty.

With the first two the Indian spokesman promised that his nation would
not eat Count Frontenac's children, those cowardly Illinois.

The next was a plaster to heal Tonty's wound.

The next was oil to anoint him and the Recollets, so their joints would
move easily in traveling.

The next said that the sun was bright.

And the sixth and last pack ordered the French to get up and leave
the country.

When the speaker sat down, Tonty came to his feet and looked at the
beaver skins piled before them. Then he looked aro