e
Mississippi. There, to their inexpressible joy, they found two of
their countrymen who had been left there by Tonty. That brave man and
loyal friend, when he received the news, by the way of France, of his
former leader's disastrous landing, had at once, at his own expense,
fitted out an expedition and led it down the Illinois to the mouth of
the Mississippi. Of course, he did not find La Salle or any trace of
him there. He had then returned to his post, leaving some of his men
at the mouth of the Arkansas. These escorted the survivors of La
Salle's party to Canada, whence they sailed to France, having made one
of the most remarkable journeys on record. They arrived in Europe, the
sole known survivors of the expedition that had left France three years
before.

Louis the Great, when he heard the news of the failure of the
enterprise, took no steps to {277} relieve the forlorn little band of
exiles on the coast of Texas. Not so Tonty. That brave soul
determined to rescue them, if possible. For the third time he voyaged
down the Mississippi, turned up the Red River, and penetrated as far as
the country of the Caddoes.[3] There he lost the most of his
ammunition in crossing a river, his men mutinied and refused to go
further, and he was compelled to turn back. On his way down the Red
River he encountered a flood and traveled more than a hundred miles
through country covered with water. The party slept on logs laid side
by side and were reduced to eating their dogs. Few men who figure in
our country's early story are more deserving of honorable remembrance
than this man with one hand and with the heart of a lion.

The French King neglected the exiles in Texas, but the Spanish King did
not. He ordered a force sent from Mexico, to destroy the nest of
invaders. When the Spanish soldiers arrived on the spot, not a human
being was to be seen. The poor little fort was a ruin, and a few {278}
skeletons were all that remained of its former inmates. The Indians in
the neighborhood told a story of a band of warriors who had entrapped
the garrison into opening the gates, on the plea of trading, and then
had rushed in and massacred them.

[Illustration: The Murder of La Salle]

Thus ended, for the time, La Salle's brilliant scheme of colonizing
Louisiana.

Supplement to Chapter XIV

The Executor of La Salle's Plan of Colonization.--First Experiences of
the Settlers.--Bienville's Shrewdness in getting rid