The wharf was
crowded with vessels from New Orleans and Cahokia, and the arched stone
bridge across the Okaw was a thoroughfare of hurrying carriages.
The road at the foot of the bluff, more than a hundred feet below Jean,
showed its white flint belt in distant laps and stretches through
northern foliage. It led to the territorial governor's country-seat of
Elvirade; thence to Fort Chartres and Prairie du Rocher; so on to
Cahokia, where it met the great trails of the far north. The road also
swarmed with carriages and riders on horses, all moving toward Colonel
Pierre Menard's house. Jean could not see his seignior's chimneys for
the trees and the dismantled and deserted earthworks of Fort Gage. The
fort had once protected Kaskaskia, but in these early peaceful times of
the Illinois Territory it no longer maintained a garrison.
The lad guessed what was going on; those happy Kaskaskians, the fine
world, were having a ball at Colonel Menard's. Summer and winter they
danced, they made fetes, they enjoyed life.
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