The force under
Villiers consisted of a body of Frenchmen gathered from various western
posts, another body from the Illinois, led by the Sieurs de Saint-Ange,
father and son, and twelve or thirteen hundred Indian allies from many
friendly tribes.[352]

The accounts of this affair are obscure and not very trustworthy. It
seems that the Outagamies began the fray by an attack on the Illinois at
La Salle's old station of Le Rocher, on the river Illinois. On hearing
of this, the French commanders mustered their Indian allies, hastened to
the spot, and found the Outagamies intrenched in a grove which they had
surrounded with a stockade. They defended themselves with their usual
courage, but, being hard pressed by hunger and thirst, as well as by the
greatly superior numbers of their assailants, they tried to escape
during a dark night, as their tribesmen had done at Detroit in 1712. The
French and their allies pursued, and there was a great slaughter, in
which many warriors and many more women and children were the
victims.[353]

The offending tribe must now, one would think, have ceased to be
dangerous; but nothing less than its destruction would content the
French officials. To this end, their best resource was in their Indian
allies, among whom the Outagamies had no more deadly enemy than the
Hurons of Detroit, who, far from relenting in view of their disasters,
were more eager than ever to wreak their ire on their unfortunate foe.
Accordingly, they sent messengers to the converted Iroquois at the
Mission of Two Mountains, and invited them to join in making an end of
the Outagamies. The invitation was accepted, and in the autumn of 1731
forty-seven warriors from the Two Mountains appeared at Detroit. The
party was soon made up. It consisted of seventy-four Hurons, forty-six
Iroquois, and four Ottawas. They took the trail to the mouth of the
river St. Joseph, thence around the head of Lake Michigan to the Chicago
portage, and thence westward to Rock River. Here were the villages of
the Kickapoos and Mascoutins, who had been allies of the Outagamies, but
having lately quarrelled with them, received the strangers as friends
and gave them guides. The party now filed northward, by forests and
prairies, towards the Wisconsin, to the banks of which stream the
Outagamies had lately removed their villages. The warriors were all on
snow-shoes, for the weather was cold and the snow deep. Some of the
elders, overcome by the hardsh