re down
now:' shouted one of the conspirators, as they despoiled his remains,
which were left on the prairie, naked and without burial, to be devoured
by wild beasts.

"Such was the end of this daring adventurer. For force of will and vast
conceptions; for various knowledge, and quick adaptation of his genius
to untried circumstances; for a sublime magnanimity, that resigned
itself to the will of Heaven, and yet triumphed over affliction by
energy of purpose and unfaltering hope,--he had no superior among his
countrymen. He had won the affection of the Governor of Canada, the
esteem of Colbert, the confidence of Seignelay, the favour of Louis XIV.
After beginning the colonisation of Upper Canada, he perfected the
discovery of the Mississippi from the Falls of St. Anthony to its mouth;
and he will be remembered through all times as the father of
colonisation in the great central valley of the West."

Jontel, with the brother and son of La Salle, and others, but seven in
all, obtained a guide from the Indians for the Arkansas, and, fording
torrents, crossing ravines, making a ferry over rivers with rafts or
boats of buffalo hides, without meeting the cheering custom of the
calumet, till they reached the country above the Red River, and leaving
an esteemed companion in a wilderness grave, on the 24th of July, came
upon a branch of the Mississippi. There they beheld on an island a
large cross: never did Christians gaze on that emblem with more
deep-felt emotion. Near it stood a log hut, tenanted by two Frenchmen.
A missionary, of the name of Tonti, had descended that river, and, full
of grief at not finding La Salle, had established a post near the
Arkansas.

As the reader may perceive, there is not much difference between our
printed records, and the traditions of the Comanches.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

It was during my convalescence that the fate of the Texian expedition to
Santa Fe was decided; and as the real facts have been studiously
concealed, and my intelligence, gained from the Indians, who were
disinterested parties, was afterwards fully corroborated by an Irish
gentleman who had been persuaded to join it, I may as well relate them
here. Assuming the character of friendly traders, with some hundred
dollars' worth of goods, as a blind to their real intentions, which were
to surprise the Mexicans during the neutrality which had been agreed
upon, about five hundred men were collected at Austin, for the