La Salle and the discovery of the great West - North Central ...

1688.] COURAGE OF TONTY. 465few Frenchmen left on the borders of the Gulf,relieve their necessities, and, should it prove practicable,make them the nucleus of a war-party tocross the Rio Grande, and add a new province to thedomain of France. It was the revival, on a smallscale,of La Salle's scheme of Mexican invasion; andthere is no doubt that, with a score of French musketeers,he could have gathered a formidable party ofsavage allies from the tribes of Red River, the Sabine,and the Trinity. This daring adventure and therescue of his suffering countrymen divided histhoughts, and he prepared at once to execute thedouble purpose. 1He left Fort St. Louis of the Illinois early inDecember, ina pirogue, or wooden canoe, with fiveFrenchmen, a Shawanoe warrior, and two Indianslaves; and, after a long and painful journey, hereached the villages ofthe Caddoes on Red River onthe twenty-eighth of March. Here he was told thatHiens and his companions were at a village eightyleagues distant; and thither he was preparing to goin search of them, when all his men, excepting theShawanoe and one Frenchman, declared themselvesdisgusted with the journey, and refused to followhim. Persuasion was useless, and there was nomeans of enforcing obedience. He found himselfabandoned; but he still pushed on, with the twowho remained faithful. A few days after, they lostnearly all their ammunition in crossing a river.1 Tonty, Mimoire.30