The Searcle for La Salle, 1685-1689
3 2 3
was no other than an agent sent out from the French settlement to win the friendship of the Indians, preparatory to the invasion of New Spain. He immediately conceived a plan to capture the stranger before he could do any harm. Carefully selecting eighteen reliable friends, including among them Captain Martin de Mendiondo and Father Buenaventura Bona!, a Franciscan, who went as chaplain, he set out posthaste on May 18. Taking a course to the northeast, he arrived at the Rio Grande seven days later, having traveled in that time forty-two leagues. As a precaution, lie established a camp here, and leaving five men behind, he hurried on with the rest. After going about twenty leagues farther, the party met a large group of Indians hunting buffalo. When asked where the white chief was, they said he was their ruler and that they would be glad to lead the Spaniards to his presence. With characteristic daring, the little group of thirteen Spaniards reined up their horses before the house of the chief, which was guarded by a number of Indians with bows and arrows. Without ceremony, Alonso de Leon, Captain Mendiondo, and Father Bona! pushed their way past the guards into the tent and there found the Frenchman sitting on his make-believe throne just as Agustin had described him. When Father Bona! approached him, he knelt in his seat and kissed the habit of the friar and politely shook hands with Governor Leon and Captain Men- diondo, saying repeatedly "Yo Frances" . ( I French). But the audacity of the veteran frontiersman reached its limit when he curtly ordered the great white chief to follow him. He was guarded by more than forty picked warriors and all the Indians obeyed him implicitly. A word from him would have meant destruction to the Spaniards. But Alonso de Leon gently yet firmly urged him to come along, assuring him that nothing would happen to him and asking him to tell his Indian friends that he would soon be back. Overcome perhaps by the very daring of these strange men, the Frenchman, who called himself Jean Gery and who appears to have been demented, followed the Spaniards, who placed him on a horse and quickly drove away. The little party arrived in the Presidio of Monclova on June 6, without mishap.H Just where the Frenchman was captured is difficult to determine. According to the diary, Alonso de Leon and his men kept almost con- stantly to the northeast. After going forty-two leagues, or approximately one hundred miles, they crossed the Rio Grande. If they started from
36 Derrotero y diario de la Jornada que io dho Genl. Alonso de !eon hize ... in Ibid., pp. 17-:rn; Auto of the capture of Jean Gery, in Ibid., 7-11.
Powered by FlippingBook