"Only six, monsieur. We have been made quite comfortable by your officer Bellefontaine."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "And he was well?"--_Page 192._]

"Monsieur the Abbe, where did Monsieur de la Salle land his colony?"

"On a western coast of the Gulf, monsieur. It was most unfortunate. Ever since he has been searching for the Mississippi."

"While I searched for him. Oh, Fathers!" Tonty's voice deepened and his swarthy joyful face set its contrast opposite two downcast churchmen, "nothing in Fort St. Louis is good enough for messengers from Monsieur de la Salle. What can I do for you? Did he send me no orders?"

"He did commit a paper to my hand, naming skins and merchandise that he would have delivered to me, as well as a canoe and provisions for our journey to New France."

"Come, let me see this paper," demanded Tonty. "Whatever Monsieur de la Salle orders shall be done at once; but the season is now so advanced you will not push on to New France until spring."

"That is the very reason, Monsieur de Tonty, why we should push on at once. We have waited a month for your return. I leave Fort St. Louis with my party to-morrow, if you will so forward my wishes."

"Monsieur the Abbe, it is impossible! You have yet told me nothing of all it is necessary for me to know touching Monsieur de la Salle."

"To-morrow," repeated the Abbe Cavelier, "I must set out at dawn, if you can honor my brother's paper."

Tonty, with a gesture of his left hand, led the way to his quarters across the esplanade. As Barbe walked behind the Recollet Father, she wondered why he had given no answer to any of Tonty's questions.

Her brother advanced to meet her, and she ran and gave him her hands and her cheek to kiss. They had been apart four years, and looked at each other with scrutinizing gaze. He overtopped her by a head. Barbe expected to find him tall and rudely masculine, but there was change in him for which she was not prepared.

"My sister has grown charming," p.r.o.nounced Colin. "Not as large as the Caveliers usually are, but like a bird exquisite in make and graceful motion."

"Oh, Colin, what is the matter?" demanded Barbe, with direct dart. "I see concealment in your face!"

"What do you see concealed? Perhaps you will tell me that." He became mottled with those red and white spots which are the blood's protest against the will.

"The Recollet Father did not answer a word to Monsieur de Tonty's questions, Colin; and the voice of my uncle the Abbe sounded unnatural.

Is there wicked power in those countries you have visited to make you all come back like men half asleep from some drug?"

"Yes, there is!" exclaimed the boy; "I hate that wilderness. When we are once in France I will never venture into such wilds again. They dull me until my tongue seems dead."

"And, Colin, you did leave my uncle La Salle quite well?"

"It was he who left us. He was in excellent health the last time we saw him." The boy spoke these words with precision, and Barbe sighed her relief.

"For myself," she said, "I love this wild world. I shall stay here until my uncle La Salle arrives."

"Our uncle the Abbe will decide that," replied Colin. "It is unfortunate that you left Montreal. Your only hope of staying here rests on the hard journey before us, and the risks we run of meeting winter on the way. I wish you had been sent to France. I wish we were all in France now."

Colin's face relaxed wistfully.

Two crows were scolding in the trees below them. Barbe felt ready to weep; as if the tender spirit of autumn had stolen through her, as mists steal along the hills. She sat down on the gra.s.sy earthwork, and Colin picked some pine needles from a branch and stood silent beside her, chewing them.

But those vague moods which haunt girlhood held always short dominion over Barbe. She was in close kinship with the world around, and the life of the fort began to occupy her.

The Rock was like a small fair with its additional inhabitants, who were still running about in a confusion of joyful noises. Children, delighted to be freed from canoes at so bright a time of day, raced across the centre, or hid behind wigwam or tree, calling to each other. An Indian stalked across to the front of the Rock, and Barbe watched him reach out through an opening in the low log palisade. A platform was there built on the trunks of two leaning cedars. The Indian unwound a windla.s.s and let down a bucket to the river below. She heard its distant splash and some of its resounding drips on the way up. Living in Fort St. Louis was certainly like living on a cloud.

"I will go into the officers' house," suggested Colin, "and see how the Abbe's demands are met by Monsieur de Tonty. We shall then know if we are to set out for Quebec to-morrow."

FOOTNOTES:

[22] Parkman states its actual height to be only a hundred and twenty-five feet.

IV.

A FeTE ON THE ROCK.[23]

Barbe did not object or a.s.sent. Youth shoves off any evil day by ignoring it, and Colin left her in lazy enjoyment of the populous place.

The Demoiselle Bellefontaine approached to ask if she desired to come to the apartment the commandant reserved for her; but Barbe replied that she wished to sit there and amuse herself awhile longer with the novelty of Fort St. Louis.

A child she had noticed on the journey brought her, as great treasure, a handful of flints and crumble-dust from the sandstone. They sorted the stuff on her knee,--fat-faced dark French child and young girl fine enough to be the sylvan spirit of the Rock.

Mademoiselle Cavelier's wardrobe was by no means equal to that gorgeous period in which she lived, being planned by her uncle the Abbe and executed by the frugal and exact hands of a self-denying sisterhood. But who can hide a girl's supple slimness in a gown plain as a nun's, or take the blossom-burnish off her face with colonial caps? Dark curls showed around her temples. Barbe's aquiline face had received scarcely a mark since Tonty saw it at Fort Frontenac. The gentle monotonous restraint of convent life had calmed her wild impulses, and she was in that trance of expecting great things to come, which is the beautiful birthright of youth.

While she was sorting arrow-head chips, her uncle came out of Tonty's quarters and cast his eye about the open s.p.a.ce in search of her. At his approach Barbe's playmate slipped away, and the Abbe placed himself in front of her with his hands behind him.

Barbe gave him a scanty look, feeling sure he came to announce the next day's journey. This man, having many excellences, yet roused constant antagonism in his brother and the niece most like that brother. When he protruded his lower lip and looked determined, Barbe thought if the sin could be set aside a plunge in the river would be better than this journey.

"I have a proposal for you, my child," said the Abbe. "It comes from Monsieur de Tonty. He tells me my brother La Salle encouraged him to hope for this alliance, and I must declare I see no other object my brother La Salle had in view when he sent you to Fort St. Louis.

Monsieur de Tonty understands the state of your fortune. On his part, he holds this seigniory jointly with my brother, and the traffic he is able to control brings no mean revenue. It is true he lacks a hand. But it hath been well replaced by the artificer, and he comes of an Italian family of rank."

Barbe's head was turned so entirely away that the mere back of a scarlet ear was left to the Abbe. One hand clutched her lap and the other pulled gra.s.s with destructive fingers.

"Having stated Monsieur de Tonty's case I will now state mine,"

proceeded her uncle. "I leave this fort before to-morrow dawn. I must take you with me or leave you here a bride. The journey is perilous for a small party and we may not reach France until next year. And an alliance like this will hardly be found in France for a girl of uncertain fortune. Therefore I have betrothed you to Monsieur de Tonty, and you will be married this evening at vespers."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"You have stated Monsieur de Tonty's case, and you have stated yours,"

said Barbe. "I will now state mine. I will not be married to any man at a day's notice."

"May I ask what it is you demand, mademoiselle?" inquired the Abbe, with irony, "if you propose to re-arrange any marriage your relatives make for you."

"I demand a week between the betrothal and the marriage."

"A week, mademoiselle!" her uncle laughed. "We who set out must give winter a week's start of us for such a whim! You will be married to-night or you will return with me to France. I will now send Monsieur de Tonty to you to be received as your future husband."

"I will scratch him!" exclaimed Barbe, with a flash of perverseness, at which her uncle's ca.s.socked shoulders shook until he disappeared within doors.

She left the earthwork and went to the entrance side of the fort. There she stood, whispering with a frown,--"Oh, if you please, monsieur, keep your distance! Do not come here as any future husband of mine!"

She had, however, much time in which to prepare her mind before Tonty appeared.