reaching a total of twenty thousand
souls. There they camped, guarded by the great fort towering above
them, on the same sacred spot where years before the Jesuit Marquette
had preached to them the gospel of the Christ. So we had no fear of
savages, and rested in peace at our night camps, singing aloud, and
sleeping without guard. Every day Barbeau went ashore for an hour,
with his rifle, tramping along beside us through the shadowing forest
screen, seeking game, and always coming back with plenty. We would
hear the sharp report of his gun breaking the silence, and turn the
prow of our canoe shoreward and pick him up again.

Owing to the leaking of our canoe, and many difficulties experienced,
we were three days in reaching the spot where the Illinois and the Fox
rivers joined their waters, and swept forward in one broad stream. The
time of our arrival at this spot was early in the afternoon, and, as
De Artigny said Fort St. Louis was situated scarce ten miles below,
our long journey seemed nearly ended. We anticipated reaching there
before night, and, in spite of my fear of the reception awaiting us,
my heart was light with hope and expectation.

I was but a girl in years, excitement was still to me a delight, and I
had listened to so many tales, romantic, wonderful, of this wilderness
fortress, perched upon a rock, that my vivid imagination had weaved
about it an atmosphere of marvel. The beauty of the view from its
palisades, the vast concourse of Indians encamped on the plains below,
and those men guarding its safety--the faithful comrades of La Salle
in explorations of the unknown, De Tonty, Boisrondet, and all the
others, had long since become to my mind the incarnation of romantic
adventure. Wilderness born, I could comprehend and appreciate their
toils and dangers, and my dreams centered about this great, lonely
rock on which they had established a home. But the end was not yet.
Just below the confluence of the rivers there was a village of the
Tamaroas, and the prow of our canoe touched the bank, while De Artigny
stepped ashore amid a tangle of low-growing bushes, that he might have
speech with some of the warriors, and thus learn conditions at the
fort. With his foot on the bank, he turned laughing, and held out his
hand to me.

"Come, Madame," he said pleasantly, "you have never seen a village of
our western tribes; it will interest you."

I joined him gladly, my limbs feeling awkward under me, from long