e shall see.

La Salle took advantage of the opportunity to assure his hosts that if
the Iroquois attacked them, he would stand by them, give them guns, and
fight for them. Then he shrewdly added that he intended building a
fort among them and a big wooden canoe in which he would descend to the
sea and bring goods for them. All this looked very plausible and won
their hearts. The next day La Salle and his companions were invited to
a feast and, of course, went. The host seized the opportunity of
warning them against descending the Great Water. He told them that its
banks were infested by ferocious tribes and its waters full of
serpents, alligators, dangerous rocks, and whirlpools; in short, that
they never would reach the ocean alive.

{240}

This harangue was interpreted to La Salle's men by two _coureurs de
bois_ who understood every word of it. La Salle saw dismay
overspreading the faces of his already disheartened men. But when his
turn came to speak, he gave the Indians a genuine surprise. "We were
not asleep," he said, "when the messenger of my enemies told you that
we were spies of the Iroquois. We know all his lies and that the
presents he brought you are at this moment buried in the earth under
this lodge." This proof of what seemed more than human sagacity
overwhelmed the Indians, and they had nothing more to say, little
dreaming that La Salle had received secret information from a friendly
chief.

Nevertheless, the next morning, when La Salle looked about for his
sentinels, not one of them was to be seen. Six of his men, including
two of the best carpenters, upon whom he depended for building the
vessel, had deserted.

To withdraw his men from the demoralizing influences of the Indian
camp, La Salle chose a naturally strong position at some distance down
the river, fortified it, and built lodgings for the men, together with
a house for the friars. This, the first habitation reared by white men
in the {241} territory now comprised in the State of Illinois, stood a
little below the site of Peoria and was called Fort Crevecoeur. This
name, Fort Break-Heart, was taken from that of a celebrated
fortification in Europe. It was to be a heart-breaker to the enemy.

La Salle believed in the doctrine of work as the best preventive of low
spirits, and he kept his men at it. No sooner was the fort finished
than he began to build the vessel. Two of his carpenters, we remember,
had deserted. "Seein