und the circle of hard
weather-beaten faces and restless eyes, and thanked the Iroquois for
their gift.

"But I would know," said Tonty, "how soon you yourselves intend to
leave the country and let the Illinois be in peace?"

There was a growl, and a number of the braves burst out with the
declaration that they intended to eat Illinois flesh first.

Tonty raised his foot and kicked the beaver skins from him. In that very
way they would have rejected a one-sided treaty themselves. Up they
sprang with drawn knives and drove him and Father Membre from the fort.

All night the French stood guard for fear of being surprised and
massacred in their lodge. At daybreak the chiefs ordered them to go
without waiting another hour, and gave them a leaky boat.

Tonty had protected the retreat of the Illinois as long as he could.
With the two Recollets, Boisrondet, young Renault, and L'Esperance, and
with little else, he set out up the river.

[Illustration: SITE OF FORT ST. LOUIS OF THE ILLINOIS.
From a Recent Photograph.]

IV.

THE UNDESPAIRING NORMAN.

"The northward current of the eastern shore of Lake Michigan and
the southward current of the western shore," says a writer exact in
knowledge, "naturally made the St. Joseph portage a return route to
Canada, and the Chicago portage an outbound one." But though La Salle
was a careful observer and must have known that what was then called the
Chekago River afforded a very short carrying to the Desplaines or upper
Illinois, he saw fit to use the St. Joseph both coming and going.

His march to Fort Frontenac he afterwards described in a letter to one
of the creditors interested in his discoveries.

"Though the thaws of approaching spring greatly increased the difficulty
of the way, interrupted as it was everywhere by marshes and rivers, to
say nothing of the length of the journey, which is about five hundred
leagues in a direct line, and the danger of meeting Indians of four or
five different nations, through whose country we were to pass, as well
as an Iroquois army which we knew was coming that way; though we must
suffer all the time from hunger; sleep on the open ground, and often
without food; watch by night and march by day, loaded with baggage, such
as blanket, clothing, kettle, hatchet, gun, powder, lead, and skins to
make moccasins; sometimes pushing through thickets, sometimes climbing
rocks covered with ice and snow; sometimes wading whole days through
ma