f life as to be almost insensible to pain,
suffered from their ingenious cruelty.

The Colorado and the Trinity were reached. A deluge of rain kept them
weather-bound for four or five days. It was a gloomy time. What added
fuel to the flame was that La Salle had with him a young nephew, named
Moranget, who presumed on his relation to the leader and behaved most
overbearingly to the men.

One day it chanced that some of the men were separated from the main
body when Nika killed two buffaloes. They sent word to La Salle, in
order that he might have the meat brought in on the horses.
Accordingly, he dispatched his nephew, Moranget, with two other men,
for that purpose. This was just the opportunity the malcontents
desired. Besides, Moranget incensed them by flying into a passion
because they had reserved certain portions of the meat for themselves,
and by seizing the whole of it. They laid their plans {275} and, in
the dead of the night, murdered him, La Salle's servant Saget, and his
faithful Indian, Nika.

Now they had to choose between killing La Salle and being killed by
him, as soon as he should learn the facts. They laid an ambush for
him, and when he came in the morning to look after the missing men,
they shot him dead. Then the murderers stripped his body, dragged it
into the bushes, and left it to be torn by buzzards.

Thus died, in the prime of his manhood, one who had done more than any
other toward the opening of our continent. He had traversed regions
where white men were almost unheard of. He had launched the first
vessel that ever floated on the vast inland seas above Niagara Falls.
He had established the French in the Illinois region, opening the way
for the possession of the Mississippi Valley. He had drawn hostile
Indian tribes together into a league strong enough to resist the Long
House. He had traveled thousands and thousands of miles on foot and by
canoe. He had led the first party of white men from the Lakes to the
Gulf of Mexico. His foresight had grasped the commercial value of the
Mississippi Valley, and, triumphing over enormous difficulties, he had
opened the Great {276} West to our race. And now all his greatness was
come to this, to die in the wilderness by an assassin's hand!

After the death of the leader, a little party, among whom were Joutel
and La Salle's brother, the friar Cavelier, after many strange
experiences, finally made their way down the Arkansas River to th