Mississippi's blackrobe

Front matter

LACKROBE

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Contents

Tur FRIENDLY PEORIAS ............ REDE OARU MET Scotia: - oe eee CROW FIIOGS fae Aa eee a Se OE

Tue RansoM OF BUFFALO Talh......

THe Great BuUE WATER .....70...

Chapter I

OWN that broad, undiscovered river which was to be known as the Wisconsin, two canoes crept. They carried seven white men. Five of these bronzed paddlers wore the fringed coats and skin trousers, the pudding-bag caps and gay red sashes that proclaimed the woodsmen. But he who plied the bow paddle of the first canoe was dressed differently. The faded black gown that covered his lean figure was frayed. Long and dark brown was the hair that the wide-brimmed hat hid. He did not look his thirty-six years. At his girdle hung the crucifix of his Saviour. And with every dip of his paddle, the breviary, suspended by a cord from his neck, swayed and threatened to pitch into the quiet waters.

A smile of expectancy lit up this Blackrobe’s features as the canoe breasted the next pine-wooded point. This smile faded away as another stretch of the unknown river unfolded before his gaze. He called over his shoulder: ‘‘Still the Great Water eludes us, Louis.’’

The man in blanket coat and jaunty cap of beaver, whom he addressed, ceased his exertions, while the gentle current carried the canoe onward.

“fT never believed half the old-squaws’ tales those Fox and Mascouten Indians told us. It is a month since we left the beach at Mackinac. We have already come weary leagues beyond our calculations and always, good Father Marquette, this river opens up another stretch. It seems a?

_ The Blackrobe interrupted the man. Undaunted certainty shone in his eyes.

“‘Liouis—Louis Joliet! Where is your faith! Neither of us must lose sight of our purpose on this voyage into the unknown. You paddle towards the South Sea to seek new nations of these red children and win them for the King. I, to teach them to know our great God, of Whom they have hitherto been pitifully ignorant. Neither of us shall fail, with Mary Immaculate’s aid.’’

There came into James Marquette’s countenance the tender expression of one who has heard a weilbeloved name.

“*And I’ll be satisfied,’? mumbled the stern paddler in that canoe, ‘‘if I ever see the Mission at Mackinac again, with this still attached to my sealp.’’ He touched affectionately the long black hair that curled out under his beaver-skin cap.

‘Ah, Jean, I heard that,’’ cried Father Marquette gayly. ‘‘Never fear; those precious locks of yours will grow to turn white.”’

“It’s a wonder they haven’t yet, my Father,’’ retorted the woodsman, and he grinned.

Again the three took up their paddles and Joliet signaled the four woodsmen in the second canoe that he was crossing the current towards the other still shore.

The look of filial devotion that Mary Immaculate’s name had kindled in Marquette’s eyes yet lingered, and his thoughts, as he plied his paddle, turned back to that last Mass he had said a month ago in the little birchbark chapel of the Mission of Saint Ignace when this expedition had started to seek the Great Water.

The Blackrobe murmured again the petition he had begged that May morning of 1673.

““You know, Mary Immaculate, I do not seek the Great Water for fame. I desire that honor to be yours. But I do wish to bring those other sheep, who live along its banks, into your Son’s Fold. And you know, Mary Immaculate, my promise to you— when my eyes fall on this river, I shall name it in honor of your Immaculate Conception.’’

This thought led to another consoling one. For Father Marquette recalled that it was on December 8th last, the very feast of the Immaculate Conception, that Louis Joliet, his companion explorer, had come paddling through the ice to the Mackinac shore with the long-expected permission from Superiors in distant Quebee, to sail and seek the unknown river.

The two had spent the long winter, gathering from the stray Ottawa, Illinois, and Pottawattomie bands, who came to the bleak mission, every scrap of information and rumor about the mighty stream that flowed through the unknown lands to the west.

Comforted and strengthened in the knowledge of Mary Immaculate’s aid, the Blackrobe bent to his paddle, and the canoe sped down these waters, which no white man had ever yet seen.

An hour later, the woodsmen’s canoe had forged ahead, and now Joliet’s keen eye noted they stopped with dripping paddles across the bark sides and listened intently. He saw Peter, the bow paddle, reach back for his flint-lock musket that lay atop a bundle of gift beads.

“‘Tiook! Our men are on guard ahead,’’ warned Joliet. ‘‘Dip your paddles in deeper, my Father— Jean.”’

Under the added urge the light birchbark canoe was lifted through the still waters till it slid alongside its mate.

As all lay on their oars, there came from beyond the curtain of dark green pines that covered the lowcliffed bank, a strange uncanny moan, such as an animal in its agony might utter.

It was very quiet in the canoes, and when a fish broke the surface nearby with a silver flash, several of the woodsmen crossed themselves devoutly.

Then on the clear air broke the quavering opening notes of a most mournful song. The notes rose and fell, and their sound was utter sorrow.

Suddenly Father Marquette’s hand went up. ‘‘I have heard that song before, my children. I have heard it when I was stationed at the abandoned Mission of the Holy Spirit on Lake Superior. It is the one the Illinois call, ‘The Song to Go Above.’ ”’

He turned to his fellow explorer and said: ‘‘ Louis, let us leave the men on guard and go ashore. Some poor Illinois is far along the way when he raises his Death Chant. I am needed.”’

Jean, the woodsman, propelled the canoe into the slack water under the low bank. Father Marquette and Louis Joliet leapt lightly ashore.

The two hght crafts were backed out into the stream, while the woodsmen laid their powder where they could reach it in a hurry.

The Blackrobe, followed by his companion, disappeared into the shadows that the thickly growing pines cast. Those on guard in the canoes heard a twig snap—a cone fall. Then silence settled on the waters once more. Again the wailing notes of that Death Song came to the alert ears of the woodsmen. It wailed away as though strength had deserted the singer.

In the meantime, breaking through the underbrush, the two moccasined voyagers had come upon a scene that made the soul-hunger gnaw at the breast of the Blackrobe.

There was a small clearing, maybe an hundred steps behind the bank of the river, and here on the southern pine wall the new green growths of mid- June were all burnt away to black, snarled wires. Marquette and Joliet halted as though struck. For there on the ground in twisted, grotesque positions, mute witnesses to the agony in which they had expired, lay one—three—four seared corpses.

On the charred branches of a tall scorched pine, hurled as one might cast mud on a wall, sprawled the blackened trunk of another Indian. The charred legs and arms were outspread in a pathetic, supplieating attitude.

“‘In the Name of God!’’ exclaimed Joliet in an awed whisper, ‘‘what new deviltry of this benighted wilderness have we stumbled on, good Father Marquette?”’

Before the Blackrobe could reply, from the further edge of the scorched clearing, came again the high quivering notes of the Death Song. To these now were added the mournful howl of a dog.

Noiselessly the two stepped across the charred area, around the dreadful dead, and entered the green undergrowth beyond. A few steps, and they were gazing down upon the powder-blackened body of an old Indian.

Seated on his haunches by his master’s side, with head upturned, was a lean brownish yellow hound. Seeing the two, the hound tilted his head to a steeper angle and emitted a lingering howl.

The Death Song stopped in the middle of a quavering note, and the hand of the lone singer sought and closed on a charred warclub. He lifted himself feebly to brandish the weapon in the direction of the Blackrobe.

Then it was that Joliet, with pity in his tones, whispered:

*“See, my Father, the Indian’s sight has been blasted away.’’

“On guard, No Flesh!’’ the Indian commanded in the Illinois tongue. ‘‘Wolves! Wolves! At last!’’

The lean hound ceased howling and, standing with one paw on the Indian’s breast and every tooth showing, faced the two men.

‘**No, brother,’’ spoke Marquette, ‘‘not wolves, but a shepherd. What dreadful thing has happened to you and your party ?’’

The Indian turned to the face he could not see.

“Who is the white man that speaks to Long Fox with Illinois words?’’ he demanded.

Marquette smiled: ‘‘Long Fox, I am the one who prays and instructs.”’

The burnt hand dropped the wareclub and, with sightless eyes, the Illinois searched the face of the Blackrobe.

‘““You are a Blackrobe. It is good,’’ replied Long Fox. ‘‘Now I know your voice. Moons ago I sat in your Prayer Cabin on the shores of the Lake of Copper [Lake Superior] and listened to your words of wisdom. I kept them in my breast. Since I lay here I have asked the Manitou, Who made heaven and earth, that the road I follow after death be the same as yours.’’

‘“What’s he saying? What has happened?’’ exclaimed Joliet. ‘‘This is not the work of the Sioux, or if it is, those feathered devils have devised new torments for their enemies. Truly they are the Iroquois’ teachers.’’

“Wait, Louis. I will tell you shortly.’’ Hasing the burnt Illinois, Marquette asked questions and listened as Long Fox told his tale.

When the old Illinois had finished, the Blackrobe translated for his companion: ‘‘Long Fox says there were six Illinois in his party. They stole a powder keg from some trappers who have a cabin, that I think must have been some leagues south of the large Mascouten village where five days ago we got the two Miami guides to show us the portage to this river.

“‘Long Fox and his party were on their way to the Illinois country to the south. The day before yesterday they camped here, and his grandson rolled the keg too close to the eamp fire. Long Fox says, suddenly the devil of the trappers came out of the keg in scorching flames.

‘Then he was hurled many feet. Of his companions, only his grandson moaned for many hours. Then he also was silent like the others.

‘“‘Longe Fox says it has been night since. He thought of the Prayer he had heard taught the Ottawas in the chapel at Holy Spirit Mission, and he prayed Our Blessed Lord se

Tears had come into Marquette’s eyes and he added huskily: ‘‘Louis, tell Jean and the woodsmen to come ashore, and you bring me water.’’

When Joliet was gone, the Blackrobe bent lower and instructed: ‘‘Long Fox, the Good Manitou, Who made heaven and earth, has surely sent me to your side. Listen, you have been through many fights with the Sioux and you realize—for you had started your Death Chant—that the rest of the journey is short. What must one do, to go to that land of delights where death and disease are forever banished ?’’

“‘Blackrobe, one must believe in the Prayer; so I heard you teach the Ottawas.’’

‘* Well, then?”’

““Then I believe, Blackrobe.’?

‘And one must pray.”’

‘‘Very well, I wish to pray, but I have not the sense to do so. Teach me, Blackrobe.’’

Quickly Marquette instructed this well-disposed soul.

There was a crunching of burnt pine cones, and Joliet and several of the woodsmen came into view.

Joliet carried water in a dripping birchbark dish. This he gave to Father Marquette and knelt on one knee at the priest’s side.

Repeating the formula of the Sacrament, the Blackrobe poured the saving waters on the blistered brow of the old Illinois.

““It is good,’’ said Long Fox. ‘‘Now I am ready to go along the right trail.’’

He turned to the hound, who had been sitting on his haunches, watching the party. ‘‘No Flesh, come here.’’

The hound crept closer and buried his muzzle in Long Fox’s hand.

‘‘This dog, Blackrobe, is faithful. He brought me a squirrel and kept me alive. He would have died with me. He lives and I give him to you.”’

Long Fox patted the brown head. ‘‘No Flesh, Blackrobe is your master now. Go to him.’’

Obediently the lean hound walked over to Father Marquette and sat looking up into his new owner’s countenance. The tail wagged as if asking, ‘‘ What orders, Master ?’’

Soon the woodsmen carried the Indian as gently as they could, across the charred clearing and into the gloomy pine forest. But before they came to the canoes at the bank, Long Fox struggled in their arms and they halted. They lowered the poor, burnt body to the ground. Again the Death Song of the Illinois eame high and clear. There was a note of triumph in it now.

Then it quivered and broke off sharply. The hound, No Flesh, squatted back on his haunches and howled.

Marquette observed to his companion: ‘‘I gave Long Fox the name of Mary in baptism. And if I never pour the waters of salvation on another head this voyage, I feel that our expedition has been successful.

‘‘Surely, this was a predestined one. Louis, we were almost visibly led to his side ere the end. Not in vain have I invoked Mary Immaculate. She is the leader of this expedition, and she claims her own on the way. And did you notice how she has given me a fine, faithful hound ?’’

The Blackrobe bent low. ‘‘Come here, No Flesh.’’ He petted the brownish yellow head. ‘‘There is a place for you in my canoe and at my fireside.’’

The woodsmen left the other bodies there as they had been hurled by the exploding powder keg, but the body of this one, who had gone to God while yet the baptismal drops glistened on his forehead, they took with them.

Once more on the broad still bosom of the river, they weighted the body and in midcurrent consigned it to the waters.

As the canoes were paddled along the river that was to be known as the Wisconsin, the two in Marquette’s canoe were silent, till the Blackrobe exclaimed :

**T recall that old Illinois now. Long Fox came often to my cabin at Holy Spirit Mission to look at the religious paintings I showed and listen to the instructions I gave about them. Then one day he disappeared. I thought, in my ignorance, that the seed had fallen on hard soil. How blind even the keenest-sighted of us are! Ah, Louis, my friend, fe we have been witnesses to the happy death of one who tried to follow Our Master.’’

‘“Happy, yes, but, my Father,’’ exclaimed Joliet, “‘if I had my choice of a death, it would be fighting —to go down gloriously for King 2

‘‘Or Kingdom,’’ put in Marquette. ‘‘as did our blessed martyred brothers—good Fathers Jogues and Brebeuf twenty odd years ago on the Iroquois and the Huron Missions.”’

The Blackrobe sighed. ‘‘But a martyr’s death is granted only to chosen souls. For us weaker ones, are left lonely deaths. Like our good Father Menard, who wore out, seeking the scattered red children of His Master to the north of us, twelve years ago, or, better yet, glorious Francis Xavier on that desolate Chinese island.”’

The brown eyes glistened as he went on:

‘“These deaths are my models. To wear out as a shepherd should and then to die alone and abandoned, this is my ideal! And it has been, ever since I was a wee lad in my native Laon, and the Good God first put into my curly head the desire of serving Him here in the mid-American wildernesses. But how I chatter, and you paddle!’’

Jean, the woodsman, drove his paddle into the water, viciously murmuring: ‘‘They can have their going down gloriously for the King in France and their lonely deaths, but if I had my way, I’d like, please God, to die in my bed.

‘‘Heavens help us! If half the tales of those two feather-stuck and paint-daubed Miamis, who showed us the portage to this river and then refused to go any further, are true, it’s doubtful if I will ever see an honest bed again. Going—going—God knows where—in search of a great river, whose banks are lined with skulking Sioux, or worse savages. My poor sealplock! Soon you and I are liable to say good-bye forever!’ .

“‘Shame, Jean,’’ chided the Blackrobe; ‘‘ we paddle under the protection of her who is more powerful than all the red warriors in the New World.

“Ts not that correct, No Flesh?’’ The Blackrobe looked down upon his dog, lying on a reed mat in the bottom of the canoe.

The brownish yellow hound wagged his tail contentedly.

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Chapter II The Great Water

HE next morning, gray light fog clouds covered parts of the river as Father Marquette and Louis Joliet stood in the shore willows of an island and looked towards the unknown stretches ahead. Vaguely through the mists downstream appeared the towhead of another island, thickly grown with aspens. Opposite, wooded points on the banks loomed up. Beyond, the fog cut off the view. Something of the fascination of gazing upon stretches of this veiled world yet to be explored, held the two men.

The woodsmen, concealed in the willows, were busy overhauling the two canoes, and the commanders were about to give the signal to embark, when No Flesh, who was foraging in the underbrush, came up and began to growl.

At the same moment, through a break in the misty . horizon, Joliet saw something that made him pull the Blackrobe to the ground. He uttered a warning to the woodsmen, and all movement behind the willow sereen ceased. As a precaution against barking, Marquette held No Flesh’s jaws.

Out of the gray cloud wall along the flats on the southern shore skimmed a small bark canoe. It carried two plumed Indians, their faces vermilion daubed. Another bark glided into sight and then three more came out of the mists.

‘“‘This is no hunting party. Our brothers are painted for war,’’ observed Marquette; ‘‘and from the manner in which they paddle, they are Sioux. Ottawas and Illinois paddle differently.”’

The Siouan party were kneeling in their small crafts. Each bonneted warrior took three or four dips of his paddle to the right and then the same ‘number of strokes to the left, and the bark canoes seemed to fly over the smooth waters.

As silently as they had come out of the mists of the lower river, the war party glided along the further shore and disappeared into a foggy cloud upstream.

But for that leak Francis and René discovered in the woodsmen’s eanoe,’’ said Joliet, as the last of the hostile Sioux was swallowed up in the gray fog, ‘we would have paddled into the midst of them. It is not a pleasant thought.’’ Joliet smiled ruefully, but he continued: ‘‘Yet we must go on to seek fuller knowledge of the Great Water; whether it flows into the South Sea, or the Western Ocean below the British Colony of Virginia, or the Mexican gulf where the Spanish are.”’

*‘As always Mary Immaculate shields her own,’’ Marquette’s countenance was glowing. ‘‘I feel such confidence, Louis, my friend, that we shall in all safety visit the nations dwelling along the great river. Mary Immaculate will permit this. Unworthy client as I am, she will let me open the passage to such of our Fathers as have awaited this good fortune for so long a time.’’

THE GREAT WATER 23

When no more Sioux appeared, the order was given to resume the voyage. Again, Marquette, Joliet, and Jean paddled in the first canoe. No Flesh picked out a comfortable spot between bags of supplies and watched the still shores slip by. He showed interest when the canoe breasted a point and came upon a doe and her fawn, drinking at the waterside.

The morning sun was burning up the mists on the river valley, and before the canoes had added a league to their journey, the clear blue sky of a June day opened above the party.

Hot high noon blazed down upon them, and the twisting river widened. Oaks and walnuts and basswood crowded either shore. More islands, thick wooded with willows and aspens, rose ahead, drew near, and dropped astern of the tireless paddlers. The scallops of green-clad hills back of the flood plains of this river unbent and straightened away. A group of woody delta islands was about the canoes. It was mid-afternoon of the seventeenth of June, 1673.

The little expedition paddled on, keeping full in the current, close to the green northern shore. There came into the mind of Joliet fragments of the warnings the elder of the Miami guides had given as they bade the voyagers good-bye at the Wisconsin portage —‘‘Whitemen, strange monsters lie in wait for such venturesome ones as you... . evil spirits of air and water will plot your disaster.’’... ‘‘We will not see you again.’’ . . . ‘‘We go no further.’’

The canoe swept around a willow point, and Joliet was about to speak when Marquette turned back from his bow position. At once Louis Joliet noted the rapture that shone on the tanned face of the Blackrobe.

Marquette pointed ahead at the new world of water that was being revealed to them.

‘We have reached the Great Water! Oh! Louis, my friend, I cannot express to you the joy that floods my breast. So long have I prayed the aid of Mary Immaculate that it might be permitted to me, all unworthy as I am, to behold this river of rivers and to bring the Prayer to her Son’s red-skinned children who dwell along its banks.’’

Tears were in Marquette’s eyes and, unashamed, he let them course down his cheeks.

The two canoes were paddled side by side, and as they floated along, the vastness of this mighty stream awed into silence the first of whitemen to behold its upper reaches.

At Marquette’s command the prows of the canoes were turned into the northern shore and a landing was made on the sunlit point. Here he and Joliet turned scientists and, unpacking their instruments, took the sun.

When their calculations were finished, Marquette announced: ‘‘If my figures are correct, it is near 421° where this river we are leaving pours its waters into the a

The Blackrobe checked himself ‘‘I was almost forgetting a promise I made to Mary Immaculate long ago.’’

Marquette stooped where the swifter current ran and cupping his hands, lifted some of the water. He poured the bright drops back, saying: ‘‘O greatest of streams, I christen you henceforth with the name of Mary’s unique prerogative—I christen you the River of the Conception.”’

THE GREAT WATER 25

As Father Marquette began to speak, Louis Joliet and the woodsmen hastily tossed off their beaver caps and standing erect and bareheaded they uttered a loud ‘‘Amen’’ as the Blackrobe finished.

A long time the Blackrobe stood there, his eyes

fixed longingly on the wide waters that flowed ever southward between the towering bluffs. Then he lifted his gaze on high and his companions heard him pray: ; ‘“‘Q Mary Immaculate, Mother of God and Mediatrix of All Graces, aid me to carry the knowledge of your Son to these nations that dwell in darkness along these lower shores.’’ :

Re-embarking in the two canoes, the voyagers pushed away from the muddy point and with a few strokes they were out on the choppy expanse of the newly christened river. It was very still on that world of strange waters. The green high bluff to the left slid by and shut off the view of the woody islands at the mouth of the river the canoes had descended.

Once out in the middle of the new river, the explorers sounded and found the depth as much as ten brasses of water! When they resumed their paddles, Joliet called to the Blackrobe in the bows: ‘‘My Father, I have just remembered a coincidence. You christened this river, the red men eall the Great Water, after Mary’s Immaculate Conception, and did you know that twenty-eight years ago next September in the Upper Town of Quebec, I was christened in the Church of the Immaculate Conception ?”’

The Blackrobe shook his head. ‘‘I did not know that, Louis, but I do know you and I would be unworthy sons of Mary Immaculate if we did not confide in her powerful protection the length of this voyage.”’

When the sun sank behind the western bluff, the seven were close to an island; and though they had not seen any signs of Indians since sighting the Sioux party in the morning, the leaders deemed it safer to camp on this island rather than to land under one of the bluffs.

No Flesh dashed ashore as the two canoes were drawn up on the sands, and Peter and Francis asked permission to go out in the current and cast their nets for sturgeon.

‘“T assure you, my Father,’’ claimed Peter, ‘‘I have seen several since we paddled out on this monstrous river.”’

Marquette gave the permission and then, lifting the breviary from his neck, began to say some of his Office before light failed.

A half an hour passed and then wild shouts from the fishermen startled all on the island. They saw the canoe being furiously paddled towards the campfire.

René caught the prow of the canoe and steadied it while Peter and Francis tumbled out.

It was Peter who found his voice first. ‘‘My Father !—Sieur!—the Mascoutens were right! It is a river of monsters. Would that I were back at Mackinac! Would that I had never left the Rock of Quebec! Would that I were safe in beautiful France!”’

Marquette motioned the excited woodsman into silence and demanded of Francis an explanation. It came with a torrent of words.

THE GREAT WATER 27

‘“We—Peter and I—had caught three sturgeons and were congratulating ourselves that we would have more than smoked fish and Indian corn for our dinner, when—when ——’’

Peter burst in: ‘‘when I saw it clearly. It was coming directly towards the side of the canoe, and my musket was on shore.”’

““What was?’’ demanded Louis Joliet.

*‘T know not, Sieur. I know much about fish. I have fished since I was no taller than the width of our canoe, but the devil I never laid eyes on till I saw him swimming towards us.’’

‘‘What stroke was he using?’’ queried Marquette with twitching lips. His question was ignored.

Francis put in: ‘‘Then I saw him, and I never wish to lay eyes on him again!’’ He shook his pudding-bag cap most emphatically.

“‘He had the head of a tiger,’’ Peter began to describe the apparition, ‘‘with whiskers, and straight, erect ears, and the sharp nose of a wildcat. The head was gray, and the neck te

Francis continued the description, ‘‘the neck was black as that powder-burnt Illinois I helped bury yesterday.’’

‘“‘Then you decided to paddle ashore ?’’

“That we did, my Father. And I will swear to my dying day it was Lucifer himself who came swimming towards us.’’

‘Do not be childish, my bearded one,’’ the Blackrobe chided Peter.

Joliet had stepped to the canoe and he exclaimed: ‘“What these two brave children saw was some new fish. Naturally, on strange waters we are liable to meet with new species. Quite likely they are very tasty.’’

He turned to the nearest woodsman. ‘‘Charles, take these sturgeons that our valiant fishermen neglected to throw at the devil and prepare them.”’

Looking at Peter and Francis, he added: ‘‘Maybe, after you children have eaten and smoked and slept, you will feel better.’’

The group broke up laughing, and soon dinner was cooked and eaten.

Then as night closed in, the fire was put out. The two canoes were anchored some little distance from the island shore. Joliet and the woodsmen crouched down as they could and dropped into the sound sleep of tired men. But Marquette, with No Flesh curled contentedly on the mats of woven leaves at his side and with his rosary slipping steadily between his fingers, sat out the first watch.

Aloft, the vague, vast sweep of stars looked down, and the day of the discovery, June 17, 1673, passed into history.

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CHAPTER III T WAS the Sieur Joliet who first discovered the

tracks in the wet sand. There they were—the innumerable markings of naked feet. The two canoes had been paddling for days down the swift-flowing River of the Conception. By now the seven men had become accustomed to the vast panorama that ever unfolded, as reach after reach of the master stream opened ahead of them. Towering green-clad bluffs seemed to slip noiselessly back as they were breasted and a new wet expanse was revealed.

Now and then a solitary eagle, roosting turkeys, a rare sight of game—deer, black bear, the dust of distant herds of buffaloes—were seen. But no signs of Indians, friendly or hostile, had the explorer come upon during those long days on the silent river.

As each evening was about to close down, the expedition had landed; usually on the wooded towhead of an island as more suitable for defense if an attack was attempted. Here over a small fire the woodsmen cooked the scanty meal. Then before darkness could betray the voyagers to sharp eyes on the bluffs, all fire was stamped out, the seven climbed back into the canoes and, dropping downstream, they anchored in the dark shelter of the current. With one always on guard, the rest snatched what sleep they could from their narrow and uncomfortable quarters, pillowed on the bundles of supplies and gifts.