Read "The Power And The Glory" by Gilbert Parker online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
On the last day of October La Salle started with fifty men to find the mouth of the Mississippi, and they were saluted by cannons and were cheered as they started. Some wore corselets made of staves to ward off arrows, and they descended the La Vache, where La Salle had built a temporary post. It was two leagues above the mouth of the river and Joutel was in command. Lodgings were built for the women and girls, separate lodgings for the men, a small chapel was added, and the whole was palisaded. At the four corners of the house were mounted pieces of cannon and all the surrounding prairie swarmed with game--buffalo, deer, turkeys, ducks--there were plenty of turtles in the river and the bay was full of oysters.
Yet death, meanwhile, made withering havoc among La Salle's followers. Many of the soldiers were useless, nearly all fell ill, and the graveyard received more than thirty tenants that summer. The new post was given the name of Fort St. Louis. Under the eye of La Salle the men had worked hard. The carpenters brought from Rochelle proved worthless and La Salle himself had made the plans of the work and directed the whole.