XI
STAGS OF TWELVE
One Victory for Chartres in the Financial Struggles of Pierre Duque de
Boisbriant—When Bubbles Burst
WHO planned the first Wild West show? Could it have been an American cowboy? No. It was a Frenchman. His name was Pierre Duque; his title, the Sieur de Boisbriant, Knight of the Military Order of St. Louis.
As king's lieutenant he was trying to regulate the tangled affairs of the Illinois region during an official visit to Fort Chartres on the Great River.
Louisiana to its remotest borders had gone to speculating on a form of paper credit which John Law, the financial dictator of France, had started in the promise of making himself and everybody else immensely rich without having to give value received at any place. His scheme was a bright Mississippi bubble. It burst at the prick of the collectors who demanded real money. All the towns were left in debt.
When he first thought of giving the show to pay the Illinois colony's bills, the Sieur de Boisbriant's whole face lighted up with fun. As he caught Anthony Auguelle's glance upon him he tried to look grave. He felt like a small boy in mischief and grew rather sheepish.
Anthony's dancing eyes arched their brows quizzically and he clucked a reproving sound between his teeth. "What do you mean, dear Sieur," he demanded, with an appearance of severity, "by enjoying yourself at a crisis so serious that I have come all the way from New Orleans to help you?"
"I have thought of a way out of our troubles that is gay enough to suit even you." And the lieutenant gave up to laughter as though he were more than pleased with himself. "Since the settlements at Kaskaskia and on the American Bottom are growing and a little post starting among the Missouri across the Mississippi, we are strongly established here at the mouth of the Illinois. Our Indians receive such good care that they are like spoiled children arrogantly demanding their own way in everything. If we try to make them work to help pay the debts of the fort they refuse our demands. They even threaten to join the Chickasaws against us."
Anthony frowned. "We never have enough men at any fort to defend it properly. We can't keep our own self-respect when we make such a poor showing before our dependents. How are we to raise crops for export when we haven't soldiers to enforce the orders of the overseers who command the Indians to plant our commons?"
"If the Indians could be made to understand how powerful France is; if France could see how remarkable the Indians can be; if both could be impressed with the importance of the explorers who go between them—then might we all assist one another to better purpose," began the Sieur de Boisbriant.
Anthony interrupted: "France herself is like one who has lost all in a lottery. The bubble has left her on the verge of bankruptcy. If we ask for more men or more money she lays aside our petitions and forgets them."
"Some special messenger of interesting personality might receive immediate attention even in the dilatory court," smiled the lieutenant. "I am thinking of sending a dancing-bear—"
"What!"
"And a panther cub in leash—"
"What!"
"And a stag of twelve—"
"What!"
"And a dozen of our handsomest young braves in war-paint and bonnets; the oldest and wrinkledest and wickedest medicine-man we can find with full regalia; the littlest, reddest, fattest papooses; squaws decked in bead-embroidered, fringed doeskin; and particularly one or two of those beautiful shell-bejeweled young girls, the maidens of the Illinois."
Anthony was speechless.
The Sieur de Boisbriant began again: "We must give up our dreams of such gold as the Spaniards found. Our wealth is in agriculture. It takes a longer time to develop fields than it does to pick up gold, but the riches are quite as sure. That nation is stable whose people live on the soil."
Anthony had no farming blood in him. He could not give up all dreams of a French Eldorado. "We found some lead in the Missouri country—"
"Also delicious wild apples of quite as much value as the lead," interrupted the lieutenant, in his turn bent on proving his point.
How little either one of them guessed that Missouri was finally to produce as its best known asset a crop of fun, through its humorist Mark Twain, which would supply not only the Mississippi country, but the whole laughter-hungry world.
Anthony rubbed his chin and thought about it. "It is true that our settlers in their log houses so neatly whitewashed and thatched, so pretty with the roses and grape-vines on the galleries and the violets growing side by side with beans in the garden, are more contented and industrious tilling the outlying fields of the commandant's common than are the gold-hunters who never get anything but yellow fever as they go prospecting. To enable this state of affairs to continue I must now catch a bear to hold a beggar's cup under the king's nose and collect a bit of needed money—is that your request?"
"It is."
It seems incredible, but they did it. Braves were selected for their prowess, squaws for their accomplishments, and maids for their beauty. Sergeant Du Bois of the fort was their chief assistant. He admired the lithe slenderness, the rich, heavy hair, and the delicate features of the Indian girls. He suggested:
"My lord lieutenant, let the chieftain's daughter, who is called a princess, be invited to head the embassy and give social tone to the expedition."
Oh, diplomatic young man! Oh, ardent lover! For this strange affair with the princess his name is written in history. His heroic deeds as a soldier have faded beside its romance.
Rude bears, reversing the plan of things, several times captured Anthony before he found the teachable cub he wanted. A mother panther tore off his clothes and some of his curls as he secured her too-playful kitten. The stag, a noble specimen, wild and full of fear, gave him more trouble than all the others, hobbled, muzzled, and harnessed though he was.
Down the river went the whole concourse to New Orleans. That hilarious town greeted their theatrical appearance with continuous applause.
To the travelers it was a holiday; to the manager of the menagerie a time of anxiety. Anthony's worst fears about the animals were realized. In crossing to the sailing-vessel the deer, released from the prison of a shed in the town, saw again the sunlight and smelled the flowing water. Voices from the forest called him. He burst the confining thongs, struck down his keepers. Plunging into the Great River, he swam to freedom.
The expedition was forced to sail without a buck.
A cat may look at a king. And so may a kitten—a panther's kitten. But not with half the astonishment which the king showed in looking at the kitten—such a curious kitten. His Majesty's eyes were round and full of delight as he gazed on the kitten's companions, that whole Wild West show of the Sieur de Boisbriant's devising.
"Our cousin of England has had a Pocahontas," quoth Louis XV; "for ourself, we prefer a variety in savages. It is our pleasure to receive the Illinois."
Right royally he provided for them, while they did their utmost to secure his favor. The braves, quite as much awed by the wonders of Paris as the Sieur de Boisbriant had expected they would be, danced their war-dances, sang their calumet songs, and presented him with a peace-pipe. They were given the stage in the Grand Opera. Squaws and braves in chorus made music of haunting, fantastic airs, accompanied by primitive instruments of a kind never before heard within those walls. The Indian flute of five exquisite notes imitating the songs of those native birds which the Louisiana ornithologist, Audubon, afterward loved so well, was the delight of the Parisian orchestra.
Ladies of the court were captivated with the barbaric handiwork of the squaws. Duchesses and maids of honor vied with one another in showing attention to the princess whom Du Bois was thoughtful enough to bring. These beauties of a new type were like live dolls to the French court. The latest Parisian creations in costumes were given them. Their hanging braids were elaborated to coiffures. High-heeled, narrow-toed satin slippers replaced their flat moccasins, and stiff bodices of the tightest girded their supple waists. If they were uncomfortable in these civilized costumes they did not say so, for they looked most charming.
Nobody liked the panther cub. Even the ladies would have preferred him in the shape of a muff. But the bear who danced to a gourd rattle and growled in Choctaw was the delight of all the children. It is painful to observe how short is the distance between ultra-refinement and savagery. Those French boys of noble birth forgot the obligations of their titles and acted exactly like a pack of young Indians.
They baited that bear!
And the bear broke his leash! The small dukes and marquises took to their heels. The bear took to his. He had twice as many legs as any one aristocrat and he made better time. He pounced upon a small chap. Howls as long as the list of his estates came from the child between hugs.
An Indian brave jumped to the rescue, snatched the victim, and ran for shelter across the park. The bear followed. A dozen Indians took up a pursuit of the bear. An excited court looked from the upper windows of the palace at Versailles to see an Indian with a child running toward them at a lively pace, while close behind him, taking the smooth lawns under the clipped trees as though they had been his own Missouri hillside, the bear also made good speed.
The king was highly diverted. The guards at the entrance gave way to the runner. They did not challenge the bear. He entered without a password. If the Indian had been accustomed to doors he might have shut one after him and put a barricade between himself and his pursuer. As it was, he went in at one side of the palace and came out at the other. All the court above-stairs, as in a gallery, leaned over the balustrades to watch the race and then ran helter-skelter to another side to be in at the finish. From every direction Indians were flying at the bear. The chase ended abruptly when they all piled upon him and the first Indian restored the boy to his mother.
"I would not have believed that a man could outrun a bear," was the king's comment. "He was going rather fast."
"An Indian on foot can follow a deer and bring it in as quarry at the end of the day." Anthony, occupying here, as elsewhere, the position of interpreter and entertainer, spoke with the freedom a chief jester might have used. "I would we might have brought with us a stag of the forest to show you, Sire, how these red men can endure."
The king turned upon him that look of genuine interest which all suppliants at the feet of capricious rulers strive so eagerly to rouse.
"It is not possible for a man to catch a deer!" exclaimed the king.
Anthony answered carefully, "A white man cannot, but these wild men are of different sinew and very quick in movement."
"In the forest near the Bois Bologne there is a deer-park. Call the gamekeeper! Let us see what we have," and his Majesty gave his whole attention to this alluring prospect of a new sport.
The Sieur de Boisbriant, thinking of his colony, had tried to tell of the oranges, lemons, figs, plums, melons, pecans, sugar-cane, rice, indigo, yams, and tobacco in the south; of the apples, berries, cherries, corn, wheat, and rye of the north. Du Bois had mentioned the water-power to grind all grains and saw the hard wood of the forests, of abundant fuel to work any metals they found. Both indicated that they needed a little more help until revenue began to come in from these sources. The royal ears were dull.
But they were sharp enough for any Mississippi product that could move as fast as a deer. "We must have a royal stag or two," was his animated decision as he consulted them in planning the races, which he insisted must begin forthwith.
How far are the prairies and forests of Illinois from the meadows and woods of the Bois Bologne? To Anthony they were just around the corner of any little grove. His heart was in the out-of-doors, never in the court of kings. He had been longing for the banks of his Great River with a consuming homesickness. As the race began all sadness vanished with one bound of his heart. A vista of this French park showed the king's deer in flight. He was a noble creature—a buck whose horns bore the rare number of twelve prongs—a stag royal.
On his trail came half the Indian hunters. The magnificent leaps of the deer were a thing to hold the watchers breathless. The lissome movements of the bronze hunters suggested the old red gods at play.
The chase was a contest of speed and endurance. Yet its grace and beauty were so marked, so new, so surprising and utterly absorbing, that all the spectators were silent and attentive.
Not to overtire the hunters or the buck, particularly not to surfeit the king, the time of the chase was limited and at the appointed hour the hunters were recalled. They had not been able to overtake the "game."
"We have another stag," the king said, with pride, on the second day. "Bring other runners. Who catches him may have him."
This was the beginning of those feats of daring which set Paris agog and gave the court the most absorbing entertainment of the century.
There came a day—a glorious day—when wind and sun and exhilarating air stirred the Indians like a Mississippi morning, when the buck went easily over brush-heaps with joyous leaps, when the hunters followed with winged heels. The quarry left them all behind. The red chieftain's pace never faltered. He began to gain. He went faster and faster. His speed was like the flight of birds.
Then came the moment which the king had thought impossible.
All eyes saw the Indian run beside the buck and lay a victor's hand upon a flank. Even a hunter mourns the death of a noble stag. The court had grown to love this woodland creature. As the Indian flourished his knife half the court screamed with disapproval. He turned its hilt. The deer ran on. The savage came back to lay the knife at the feet of the king. To spare the royal stag was an act of courtesy which delighted the French, for whose benefit Anthony had carefully planned the behavior of the red man.
Never again would that court forget the Mississippi colonies or idly wonder what sort of people Indians were.
In the cathedral of Notre Dame the king, amid great pomp and splendor, knighted the Sergeant Du Bois. He was given a title and the command of Fort Chartres.
A knight who is a commandant is a very eligible husband for any lady of quality. The Sieur Du Bois—"brave, bold, and loyal"—was given the hand of his princess in the presence of the court.
The great organ of the cathedral pealed, the censers swung, the choir boys chanted, and the priests married the beautiful girl of the Illinois to the titled young commandant.
The Sieur de Boisbriant, with papers of lengthened credit in his pocket, with a gift of more troops and munitions loading at Havre and promises of endless patronage from his sovereign, stood hand in hand with the happy Picard du Gay all through the gorgeous ceremony, their thoughts on the towns of their Great River and how they were to be lifted above debt and into prosperity as a result of the races with the stags of twelve.