Heroes of the Middle West: The French

on its course, seemed to surround and threaten them with ambush. Still, day after day, the sweet and awful presence of the wilderness was their only company. Once Pierre Porteret dropped his paddle w

wed aloud as he saw a living tree glide under the canoe, jarring it from end to end. The voyageurs soon learned t

The stag uttered far off his whistling call of defiance to other stags. And they began to see a shaggy ox, humped, with an enormous head and short black horns, and a mane hanging over low-set wicked eyes. Its body was cove

t to guard against surprise. By the 25th of June they had passed through sixty leagues of solitude. The whole American continent was thinly settled by native tribes, many in name indeed, but of scant

rn bank, driven by the current, wh

r the sight

nswered. "Look to thy scalp,

they saw moccasin prints in the low moist m

held the boats togethe

ass by without searching w

cks to cut off our return. Some Indian village is near.

Jolliet. "Two of them at least

f we go unarmed and unattended, we shall

se suspicion in

tte la

er have us at their mercy," he declared, "We

onnoitre,"

either Frenchman had yet seen the deadly rattlesnake of these southern countries, singing as a great fly might sing in a web, dart out of its spotted spiral to fasten a death bite upon a victim. They walked in silence, dreading only the human beings they were going to meet. When they had gone about t

vages ran out of their wigwams and darted about in confusion until they saw the two motionless white men. The long black cassock of Marq

orers, holding up curious pipes trimmed with many kinds of feathers.

ribe is

aced nearly all northern aboriginal nations, with the notable exception of the Iroquois, these

Indian like a statue of wrinkled bronze. For he had stripped himself to do honor to the occasion, and held up

come to see us, O Frenchmen! O

and the pipe, or calumet, offered them to smo

lu

to visit us

tte put the pipe to his lips, but Jolliet, use

nchmen, whom they guided farther to the chief's town. He also met them st

re fires burned in a row along the middle. Each fire was used by two families who lived opposite, in stalls made of blankets. The ends of the lodge had flaps to shut out the weather, but these were left wide open to the summer sun. During visits of ceremony a guest stood where he could be seen and heard

in his errand in the crowded inclosure, dividing his talk into four parts with presents. By the first gift of cloth and b

ave been so long ignorant of him, he wishes to become known to you. I am sen

spread peace and overcome the Iroquois. And the last begged for all

up and laid his hand on the head of a l

so calm and free from rocks, which your canoes removed as they passed! Never has our tobacco had so fine a flavor, nor our corn appeared so beautiful as we find it to-day. Here is my son. I give him to

gamity or corn-meal boiled in water and grease. The chief took a buffalo-horn spoon and fed his guests as if they had been little children; three or four spoonfuls he put in Marquette's mouth and three or four spoonfuls in Jolliet's. Three fish were brought next, and he picked out the bones with his own fingers, blew on the

d Moingona. Flight scattered them, and these were only a few of their villages. They afterwards returned to their own land. Their chief wore a scarf or belt of fur crossing his left shoulder, encircling his waist and hanging in fringe. Arm and leg bands orname

old squaws dropped rush braiding, and with papooses swarming about their knees, followed. The Illinois were nimble, well-formed people, skillful with bow and arrow. They had, moreover, some guns among them, obtained from allies

a beautiful calumet. Around them he spread his bow and arrows, his war club, and stone hatchet. The pipe was made of red rock like brilliantly polished marble, hollowed to hold tobacco. A stick two feet long, as thick as a

Cl

umet, which was filled, and blew a little smoke on the manitou. Then the dancer sprang out, and, with graceful curvings in time to the music, seized the pipe and offered it now to the sun and now to the earth, made it dance from mouth

nahani, nanah

e Ha

measured steps and a floating motion of the body the two advanced and attacked, parried and retreated, until the man with the pipe drove his enemy from the ring. Papooses of a dark brick-red color watche

from his hand, gave it to an old man in the circle. This one passed it to the next, and so

plumes, and displaying it you may march fearlessly among enemies. It has power of life and death, and honor is paid to it as to a manitou. Blackgown, I give

ns in a calendar to mark Sundays and holy days. Next morning the chief went with several hundred of his people to escort them to th

them awhile directly eastward, and below great rocks like castles. As the canoes ran along the foot of this east shore, some of the voyageurs cried out. For on the face of the cliff far up were two painted monsters in glaring red, green, and black; each as large as a calf, with deer horns, blood-colored eyes, tiger beard, a human face, and a body cover

thing is this,

dians with us, we should see them toss a lit

uld find it hard to do as well. Besides this, the creatures are so high upon the rock that it was ha

in daubing themselves. These wild tribes may have among

n which he set down his notes; and while the men stuck their paddles in

e Piasa. More than two centuries of beating winter storms had not effaced the brilliant picture when it was quarried away by a stupidl

back, and the line of vision changing, they saw that the fi

storm, eddying islands of branches, stumps, whole trees, took possession of the fair stream they had followed so long. It shot across the current of the Mississippi in entering so that the canoes danced like eggshells and were dangerously forced to the eastern bank. Afterwards they learned that t

anguors of heat. Jolliet and Marquette made awnings of sails which they had brought as a help to the paddles. They were floating down the current of the muddy, swollen river when they saw Indians with guns on the east shore. The voyageurs dropped their paddles and seized their own weapons. Marquette stood up and spoke to the Indians in Huron. They made no answer. He held up the white calumet. Then t

d it was but a ten days' journey to the sea. In this they were mis

um G

he prayer. For each he had a wampum girdle to hold while he talked, and t

g out huge wooden canoes to surround them. Some swam to seize the Frenchmen, and a war club was thrown over their heads. Marquette held up the peace-pipe, but the wild young braves in the water paid no attention to it. Arrows were ready to fly fr

ast found a man who spoke a little Illinois, and Jolliet and he were able to expla

eir land yielded three crops a year. Their pots and plates were of baked earth, and they kept corn in huge gourds, or in baskets woven of cane fibers. They knew nothing of beaver skins; thei

held a council. They were certain that the great river discharged itself into the Gulf of Mexico. If they ventured farther, they might fall into the hands of Spaniards, wh

refuse food or the attention of rocking. Two stout Indians would seize a voyageur between th

miserable in the fog of early morning. His companion on many a long j

k thee all ni

can well endure what most men can, but

led the rest of us. And they would have saved the good father, n

ckers intending to make a

p the council, and will set us saf

he Sieur Jolliet for such rude wanderings. These southern mists, and torturing

the Mission of St. Ignace," said Jacq

ve the bigness of years will

oria Lake, another Illinois town of seventy-four lodges was found, and these Kaskaskias so clung to the Blackrobe that he promised to come back and teach them. From the head waters of the Illino

on to Montreal. His canoe was upset in the rapids of Lachine just above Montreal, and he lost two men, the Indian boy, h

s and labors. In autumn, with Pierre Porteret and the voyageur Jacques, he ventured again to the Illinois. Once he became so ill they were obliged to stop and build him a cabin in the wilderness, at the risk of being snowed in all winter. It was not until April that he reached what he called his Mission of the Immaculate Conception,

the east side of that great lake known now as Michigan. A creek parted the rugg

we do?" whis

s fast as we can,

stretched in the bottom of the canoe. His thin fingers held a cross. His white face and bright hair rested on a pile of blankets. Pierre and

they were slipping past, and a plea

he place of

e, "it is yet early in the d

re here," he w

hours afterward he died, the weeping men holding up his cross before him, while he thanked the Divine Majesty for l

th a procession of canoes and a priest intoning. They were placed under the altar of his own chapel. If you go to St. Ignace, you may see a monumen

Gurdon Hubbard made this record about

is death to mark his grave; and though his remains had been removed to the Mission, at Point St. Ignace, the cross was held sacred by the voyageurs, who, in passing, paid reverence to it, by kneeling and making the sign of the cross. It was about three feet