it was perhaps as well that tonty was compelled to turn back, for he could have done little good even if he had been able to press on and reach the bay of st. louis. when he was at the cenis or nabedache village pleading for guides, the spaniards had already marched from mexico to attack the french fort and its little garrison, and were encamped on the hill where la salle had left barbier in charge of the survivors. but others had preceded them, and they found the buildings in ruins. scattered here and there were boxes and bits of supplies; doors were unhinged, barrels broken open, and in the near-by meadow were dead bodies of frenchmen.
on may 1, into the camp of the spaniards walked two men. painted and savage and dressed in buffalo hides, these two strangers were l’archevêque and grollet, the servant of duhaut, and ruter’s half-savage companion. they had come to give themselves up to the spaniards rather than endure longer their wretched existence among the indians.
three months before, so they told the spanish officer, the meager garrison under barbier, just recovering from a siege of smallpox, was set upon by howling karankawan indians who massacred the inhabitants and pillaged the fort. gabriel barbier and father membré both were killed outright. barbier’s wife with a three-months-old babe at her breast was saved for a time by the indian women; but the warriors, returning and finding her still alive, murdered her also, and, seizing the baby by the feet, beat its brains out against a tree.
thus the colony had paid for the offense of moranget and his men when they had first landed on the red men’s shores and robbed the native camp of canoes and blankets. after the massacre, l’archevêque and grollet claimed that they had come to the fort and buried fourteen of the dead.
many years later there came to the ears of tonty a remarkable tale of some who had escaped the killing at the fort on the bay. among those who had remained with barbier was the widow talon, whose husband had been lost on one of la salle’s first expeditions to hunt the river. one of her daughters had died of sickness at the fort. her oldest boy pierre had been taken by la salle to the village of the cenis to learn their language. though she did not know it on the day of the massacre, pierre had for a year and a half been running wild like the indians themselves, in the cenis country. a chief of the cenis had taken him, together with young meusnier, under his own protection.
but the widow still kept four of the children with her in the fort. then came that awful day when the indians fell upon them. before the eyes of her children the widow was killed. but the indian women took compassion upon the four little ones, carried them off on their backs, and adopted them into their own families. the oldest was a young girl named mary magdalene talon, and her younger brothers were jean baptiste, robert, and lucien—one of whom, now a boy of four, had been born on the way over from france. with these four the squaws had rescued a young boy called eustache bréman.
in the lodges of indians the five children were brought up by their foster mothers with as much care as the dusky children of the tribe. for many years the girl and her young brothers lived as the indians lived. they ate meat as their red brothers did—raw, sun-baked, or half-cooked. the boys learned to run and to ride and to draw the bow; and like the indians themselves they learned to run to the nearest stream each morning at break of day and plunge naked into the water, whatever the season might be.
one day the karankawas took sharp thorns and pricked holes through the skin of the arms and faces and other parts of the bodies of these french children. then, having burned in the fire a walnut branch, they crushed the charcoal into powder, mixed it with a little water, and forced it into the holes in their fair skin. it was very painful at first, but the pain soon passed away and then each adopted child appeared tattooed with marks that no washing could take out.
jean baptiste and young bréman were soon old enough to be off with the braves. perhaps the only habit of life which they could not learn was the eating of human flesh. once the warriors fell upon a tribe of the tonkawans and killed many, and for three days jean baptiste went without food because his foster people gave him nothing to eat save the flesh of the men they had slain.
meanwhile among the cenis or nabedaches, hiens and his party had been having strange experiences—fighting in the savage wars and living in the round thatched huts of the indians. but it was not in the nature of things for this band of survivors to live peaceably among themselves. ruter, the half-savage deserter who had talked one night with joutel by the cenis lodge-fire, quarreled with hiens (so came the tale to tonty) and killed the old buccaneer. as for ruter, never more was he heard from. his companion, grollet, and the miserable l’archevêque, tiring of their life among the indians, had already given themselves up to the spaniards.
there remained, under the protection of the cenis chief, pierre talon and his comrade meusnier. one day an indian friend came to them with warning on his lips: the spaniards, cruel enemies of their countrymen, were marching into the indian country looking for these refugee white men. in fear they fled from town to town; but their flight was in vain, for it was not long before they had fallen into the hands of the spanish horsemen. their captors marched them back to the village of the cenis, hoping to find more whites there. they were disappointed, but during their brief stop they became so impressed with the indians that they left three spanish franciscan friars and built them a chapel in the village. two of the spanish officers spoke the french language as well as their own; talon and meusnier had become familiar with the tongue of the cenis; and so by means of a four-sided conversation the friars learned from the indians a few words of their language before their men took the captives away to the southwest.
pierre was greatly astonished at all this. these men seemed to be christians even if they were spanish, and instead of cruelty they had bestowed upon him only kindness. if the spaniards were like this, he would have them capture also his sister and younger brothers. and so he told the spaniards that he had three brothers and a sister living with the karankawas, down near the bay of st. louis.
on the way back to mexico the spanish troops with swords and guns and horses rode into the village where the talon children were. jean baptiste talon and eustache bréman they did not find; but mary magdalene and robert and lucien were there. the officers agreed to give the indians who had fostered them a horse for each child. but when they came to the girl mary, who was older and larger, the indians protested; for they thought that they ought to get two horses for her. the dispute grew hot and both sides sprang to arms. the spanish guns spoke, two or three indians fell dead and the others fled terrified. the subdued indians finally gave up the girl for one horse, and the spaniards rode out of the village, after giving the indians some tobacco to ease the hearts of those whose dead lay upon the ground.
the foster mothers mourned over their lost children, especially the younger ones, for in the years of their stay with the tribe they had found warm places in indian hearts. jean baptiste and young bréman remained for another year with their indian people. then there came another spanish troop and carried them off. again the indians wept and urged young talon to escape as soon as possible and come back to them and bring with him as many spanish horses as he could. he promised, but they never saw him again. thus the talons came to mexico.
pierre and jean talon, after many years with the spaniards, came at last to their own country of france. long before them the abbé, joutel, and their three companions had also come home to the land of the lilies.
in the wild reaches of the great valley there remained little trace of the last expedition of la salle to found a colony at the foot of what joutel had come to call the fatal river. up and down the broad highway that ran through the valley from north to south, red men pushed their wooden dugouts or bark canoes. with moccasined feet they trailed the deer through the woods and followed the track of the shaggy beasts of the plains. and at break of day beside the enemy’s camp they sent up the cry of war quite as they and their fathers had done for many hundred years. from one end of the valley to the other the white men had traveled; and yet, as the track of a canoe dies out of the water or the shadow of a flying bird passes over the plain and is gone, so now it seemed that the trail of the white men’s passing had vanished out of the valley and that the dream that had led to their coming had been lost with the dreamer beneath the waving grass of the southern plains.
yet down by the gulf a quinipissa chief guarded year by year a precious letter, waiting, and not in vain, to give it to a white man who should come into the mouth of the river from the sea. and, far in the north, on a high rock beside the river illinois, the man with the iron hand, known and loved and feared by all the tribes, kept alive year after year the vision of his chief. his days were to be long in the valley he loved and his services many to his king and his indian friends; and the time was yet to come when he would see the flag of france waving over a colony of frenchmen at the mouth of the river which had run like a silver thread through a quarter of a century of dreams and deeds.
