""Tis a land of plenty," said Du Mesne one day, breaking the habitual silence into which the party had fallen. ""Tis a great land, and a mighty. And now, Monsieur, I know why the Indians say "tis guarded by spirits. Sure, I can myself feel something in the air which makes my shoulder-blades to creep."
""Tis a mighty land, and full of wonders," a.s.sented Law, who, in different fashion, had felt the same mysterious spell of this great stream. For himself, he was nearer to reverence than ever yet he had been in all his wild young life.
Now so it happened that at length, after a long though rapid journey down the great river, they came to that stream which they took to be the river of the Illini. This they ascended, and so finally, early in one evening, at the bank of a wide and placid bayou, shaded by willows and birch trees, and by great elms that bore aloft a canopy of clinging vines, they made a landing for the bivouac which was to prove their final tarrying place. The great _canot du Nord_ came to rest at the foot of a timbered hill, back of which stretched high, rolling prairies, dotted with little groves and broken with wide swales and winding sloughs. The leaders of the party, with Tete Gris and Pierre Noir, ascended the bluffs and made brief exploration; not more, as was tacitly understood, with view to choosing the spot for the evening encampment than with the purpose of selecting a permanent stopping place. Du Mesne at length turned to Law with questioning gaze. John Law struck the earth with his heel.
"Here!" said he. "Here let us stop. "Tis as well as any place. There are flowers and trees, and meadows and hedges, like to those of England.
Here let us stay!"
"Ah, you say well indeed!" cried Du Mesne, "and may fortune send us happy enterprises."
"But then, for the houses," continued Law. "I presume we must keep close to this little stream which flows from the bluff. And yet we must have a place whence we can obtain good view. Then, with stout walls to protect us, we might--but see! What is that beyond? Look! There is, if I mistake not, a house already builded!"
""Tis true, as I live!" cried Du Mesne, lowering his voice instinctively, as his quick eye caught the spot where Law was pointing.
"But, good G.o.d! what can it mean?"
They advanced cautiously into the little open s.p.a.ce beyond them, a glade but a few hundred yards across and lined by encircling trees. They saw indeed a habitation erected by human hands, apparently not altogether without skill. There were rude walls of logs, reinforced by stakes planted in the ground. From the four corners of the inclosure projected overhanging beams. There was an opening in the inclosure, as they discovered upon closer approach, and entering at this rude door, the party looked about them curiously.
Du Mesne shut his lips tight together. This was no house built by the hands of white men. There were here no quarters, no shops, no chapel with its little bell. Instead there stood a few dried and twisted poles, and all around lay the litter of an abandoned camp.
"Iroquois, by the living Mother of G.o.d!" cried Pierre Noir.
"Look!" cried Tete Gris, calling them again outside the inclosure. He stood kicking in the ashes of what had been a fire-place. He disclosed, half buried in the charred embers, an iron kettle into which he gazed curiously. He turned away as John Law stepped up beside him.
"There must have been game here in plenty," said Law. "There are bones scattered all about."
Du Mesne and Tete Gris looked at each other in silence, and the former at length replied:
"This is an Iroquois war house, Monsieur L"as," said he. "They lived here for more than a month, and, as you say, they fed well. But these bones you see are not the bones of elk or deer. They are the bones of men, and women, and children."
Law stood taking in each detail of the scene about him.
"Now you have seen what is before us," resumed Du Mesne. "The Iroquois have gone, "tis true. They have wiped out the villages which were here.
There are the little cornfields, but I warrant you they have not seen a tomahawk hoe for a month or more. The Iroquois have gone, yet the fact that they have been here proves they may come again. What say you, Tete Gris; and what is your belief, Pierre?"
Tete Gris remained silent for some moments. ""Tis as Monsieur says,"
replied he at length. ""Tis all one to me. I go or stay, as it shall please the others. There is always the one trail over which one does not return."
"And you, Pierre?"
"I stay by my friends," replied Pierre Noir, briefly.
"And you, Monsieur L"as?" asked Du Mesne.
Law raised his head with the old-time determination. "My friends," said he, "we have elected to come into this country and take its conditions as we find them. If we falter, we lose; of that we may rest a.s.sured.
Let us not turn back because a few savages have been here and have slaughtered a few other savages. For me, there seems but one opinion possible. The lightning has struck, yet it may not strike again at the same tree. The Iroquois have been here, but they have departed, and they have left nothing to invite their return. Now, it is necessary that we make a pause and build some place for our abode. Here is a post already half builded to our hands."
"But if the savages return?" said Du Mesne.
"Then we will fight," said John Law.
"And right you are," replied Du Mesne. "Your reasoning is correct. I vote that we build here our station."
"Myself also," said Tete Gris. And Pierre Noir nodded his a.s.sent in silence.
CHAPTER VI
MAIZE
"Ola! Jean Breboeuf," called out Du Mesne to that worthy, who presently appeared, breathing hard from his climb up the river bluff. "Know you what has been concluded?"
"No; how should I guess?" replied Jean Breboeuf. "Or, at least, if I should guess, what else should I guess save that we are to take boat at once and set back to Montreal as fast as we may? But that--what is this?
Whose house is that yonder?"
""Tis our own, _mon enfant_," replied Du Mesne, dryly. ""Twas perhaps the property of the Iroquois a moon ago. A moon before that time the soil it stands on belonged to the Illini. To-day both house and soil belong to us. See; here stood the village. There are the cornfields, cut and trampled by the Iroquois. Here are the kettles of the natives--"
"But, but--why--what is all this? Why do we not hasten away?" broke in Jean Breboeuf.
"Pish! We do not go away. We remain where we are."
"Remain? Stay here, and be eaten by the Iroquois? Nay! not Jean Breboeuf."
Du Mesne smiled broadly at his terrors, and a dry grin even broke over the features of the impa.s.sive old trapper, Tete Gris.
"Not so fast with your going away, Jean, my brother," said Du Mesne.
"Thou"rt ever hinting of corn and the bean; now see what can be done in this garden-place of the Iroquois and the Illini. You are appointed head gardener for the post!"
"Messieurs, _me voila_," said Jean Breboeuf, dropping his hands in despair. "Were I not the bravest man in all New France I should leave you at this moment. It is mad, quite mad you are, every one of you! I, Jean Breboeuf, will remain, and, if necessary, will protect. Corn, and perhaps the bean, ye shall have; perhaps oven some of those little roots that the savages dig and eat; but, look you, this is but because you are with one who is brave. _Enfin_, I go. I bend me to the hoe, here in this place, like any peasant."
"An excellent hoe can be made from the blade bone of an elk, as the woman Wabana will perhaps show you if you like," said Pierre Noir, derisively, to his comrade of the paddle.
"Even so," said Jean Breboeuf. "I make me the hoe. Could I have but thee, old Pierre, to sit on a stump and fright the crows away, I make no doubt that all would go well with our husbandry. I had as lief go _censitaire_ for Monsieur L"as as for any seignieur on the Richelieu; of that be sure, old Pierre."
"Faith," replied the latter, "when it comes to frightening crows, I"ll even agree to sit on a stump with my musket across my knees and watch you work. "Tis a good place for a sentinel--to keep the crows from picking yet more bones than these which will embarra.s.s you in your hoeing, Jean Breboeuf."
"He says the Richelieu, Du Mesne," broke in John Law, musingly. "Very far away it sounds. I wonder if we shall ever see it again, with its little narrow farms. But here we have our own trails and our own lands, and let us hope that Monsieur Jean shall prosper in his belated farming.
And now, for the rest of us, we must look presently to the building of our houses."
Thus began, slowly and in primitive fashion, the building of one of the first cities of the vast valley of the Messasebe; the seeds of civilization taking hold upon the ground of barbarism, the one supplanting the other, yet availing itself of that other. As the white men took over the crude fields of the departed savages, so also they appropriated the imperfect edifice which the conquerors of those savages had left for them. It was in little the story of old England herself, builded upon the races and the ruins of Briton, and Koman, and Saxon, of Dane and Norman.
Under the direction of Law, the walls of the old war house were strengthened with an inner row of palisades, supporting an embankment of earth and stone. The overlap of the gate was extended into a re-entrant angle, and rude battlements were erected at the four corners of the inclosure. The little stream of unfailing water was led through a corner of the fortress. In the center of the inclosure they built the houses; a cabin for Law, one for the men, and a larger one to serve as store room and as trading place, should there be opportunity for trade.
It was in these rude quarters that Law and his companion established that which was the nearest approach to a home that either for the time might claim; and it was thus that both undertook once more that old and bootless human experiment of seeking to escape from one"s own self.
Silent now, and dutifully obedient enough was this erstwhile English beauty, Mary Connynge; yet often and often Law caught the question of her gaze. And often enough, too, he found his own questioning running back up the water trails, and down the lakes and across the wide ocean, in a demand which, fiercer and fiercer as it grew, he yet remained too bitter and too proud to put to the proof by any means now within his power. Strange enough, savage enough, hopeless enough, was this wild home of his in the wilderness of the Messasebe.