Plaines route. Near a bark cabin
a bit of wood that had been cut with a saw showed that Tonty and his
men had gone this way. If they had but left at the fork of the stream
some sign of their passage, La Salle's party would have seen it on
their way down, and all this anxiety would have been obviated.

With his mind relieved, La Salle was glad to rest for a while at his
little Fort Miami, situated at the mouth of the St. Joseph River.

Tonty had passed through perilous straits. The desertion of the larger
part of his men left him with but three fighting men and two friars.

{246}

Next came a tremendous war-party of Iroquois to attack the Illinois, in
the midst of whom he was. For various reasons, the Illinois suspected
that the Frenchmen had brought this trouble upon them and, but for
Tonty's coolness, would have mobbed and murdered the little handful of
white men. When the Iroquois began the attack, Tonty went among them,
at the peril of his life, actually receiving a wound from an infuriated
young warrior, and succeeded in stopping the fighting by telling the
Iroquois that the Illinois numbered twelve hundred, and that there were
sixty armed Frenchmen, ready to back them.

The effect of this timely fabrication was magical. The Iroquois at
once were for peace and employed Tonty to arrange a truce. That night
the Illinois slipped away down the river. The Iroquois followed them,
on the opposite shore, watching for an opportunity to attack. This did
not offer itself, but they actually drove the Illinois out of their own
country, after perpetrating a butchery of women and children.

Meanwhile they had discovered Tonty's deception and were enraged. He
had robbed them of a prey for which they had marched hundreds of miles.
Only a wholesome fear of Count {247} Frontenac, of whom the Indians
stood in great awe, kept them from falling on the little band. As it
was, matters looked so stormy that the Frenchmen stood on the watch all
night, expecting an attack. At daybreak the chiefs bade them begone.
Accordingly they embarked in a leaky canoe and started up the river.

At their first stop Father Ribourde strolled away. When he did not
reappear his comrades became alarmed. Tonty and one of the men went in
search of him. They followed his tracks until they came to the trail
of a band of Indians who had apparently carried him off. They
afterward learned that a roving band of Kickapoos, one of the worst
specime