Part 3

When the two Miamis had helped to carry the goods and had set the French on the tributary of the great river, they turned back to their own country. Before the men entered the boats Marquette knelt down with them on the bank and prayed for the success of the undertaking. It was a lovely broad river on which they now embarked, with shining sands showing through the clear water, making shallows like tumbling discs of brilliant metal,--a river in which the canoes might sometimes run aground, but one that deceived the eye pleasantly, with islands all vine covered, so when a boat clove a way between two it was a guess how far the Wisconsin spread away on each side to shores of a fertile land. Oaks, walnuts, whitewood, and thorn trees crowded the banks or fell apart, showing prairies rolling to wooded hills. Deer were surprised, stretching their delicate necks down to drink at the margin. They looked up with shy large eyes at such strange objects moving on their stream, and shot off through the brush like red-brown arrows tipped with white. The moose planted its forefeet and stared stolidly, its broad horns set in defense.

"Sieur Jolliet," said the missionary, once when the canoes drew together, "we have now left the waters which flow into the great lakes and are discharged through the St. Lawrence past Quebec to the sea. We follow those that lead us into strange lands."

"This river Miscousing on which we now are," returned Jolliet, "flows, as we see by our compass, to the southwestward. We know it is a branch of the great river. I am becoming convinced, Father, that the great river cannot discharge itself toward the east, as some have supposed."

The explorers estimated the distance from the country of the Mascoutins to the portage to be three leagues, and from the portage to the mouth of the Miscousing forty leagues. This distance they covered in a week. Drawing their canoes to the shore at night, they pitched camp, varying the monotony of their stores with fish and game. Perhaps they had learned that wild grapes then budding were not really fit to eat until touched by frost. Pierre Porteret said in Marquette's hearing, "the Indians could make good wine of grapes and plums if they desired."

The 17th of June, exactly one month from the day on which they had left St. Ignace mission, the explorers paddled into a gentle clear river, larger than the Miscousing but not yet monstrous in width, which ran southward. High hills guarded the right-hand shore, and the left spread away in fair meadows. Its current was broken with many little islands, like the Miscousing, though on sounding, Jolliet found the water to be ten fathoms, or sixty feet, deep. The shores receding, and then drawing in, gave unequal and irregular width to the stream. But it was unmistakably the great river they had sought, named then as now by the Indians, Mississippi, though Marquette at once christened it Conception, and another Frenchman who came after him gave it the name of Colbert. It was the river of which Nicollet had brought hints from his wanderings among northwestern tribes: the great artery of the middle continent, or, as that party of explorers believed, of the entire west. Receiving into itself tributaries, it rolled, draining a mighty basin, to unknown seas.

The first white men ventured forth upon its upper channel in two birch canoes. Five hardy voices raised a shout which was thrown back in an echo from the hills; five caps were whirled as high as paddles could raise them. But Marquette said, "This is such joy as we cannot express!" The men in both canoes silenced themselves while he gave thanks for the discovery.

II.

BEARERS OF THE CALUMET.

Moving down the Mississippi, league after league, the explorers noted first of all its solitude. Wigwam smoke could not be seen on either shore. Silence, save the breathing of the river as it rolled 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 with a yell which was tossed about by echoing islands. A thing with a tiger's forehead and a wildcat's whiskered snout, holding ears and entire gray and black head above the water, swam for the boat. But it dived and disappeared; and the other voyageurs felt safe in laughing at him. Not long after, Jacques bellowed aloud as he saw a living tree glide under the canoe, jarring it from end to end. The voyageurs soon learned to know the huge sluggish catfish. They also caught plenty of sturgeon or shovel fish when they cast in their nets.

The river descended from its hilly cradle to a country of level distances. The explorers, seeing nothing of men, gave more attention to birds and animals. Wild turkeys with burnished necks and breasts tempted the hunters. 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 covered with curly rough hair. They learned afterwards from Indians to call these savage cattle pisikious, or buffaloes. Herds of many hundreds grazed together, or, startled, galloped away, like thunder rolling along the ground.

The explorers kindled very little fire on shore to cook their meals, and they no longer made a camp, but after eating, pushed out and anchored, sleeping in their canoes. Every night a sentinel was set 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 numbers. The most dreaded savages in the New World were the Iroquois or Five Nations, living south of Lake Ontario. Yet they were never able to muster more than about twenty-two hundred fighting men.

The canoes were skirting the western bank, driven by the current, when one voyageur called to another:

"My scalp for the sight of an Indian!"

"Halt!" the forward paddler answered. "Look to thy scalp, lad, for here is the Indian!"

There was no feathered head in ambush, but they saw moccasin prints in the low moist margin and a path leading up to the prairie.

Marquette and Jolliet held the boats together while they consulted.

"Do you think it wise to pass by without searching what this may mean, Father?"

"No, I do not. We might thus leave enemies behind our backs to cut off our return. Some Indian village is near. It would be my counsel to approach and offer friendship."

"Shall we take the men?" debated Jolliet. "Two of them at least should stay to guard the canoes."

"Let them all stay to guard the canoes. If we go unarmed and unattended, we shall not raise suspicion in the savages' minds."

"But we may raise suspicion in our own minds."

Marquette laughed.

"The barbarous people on this unexplored river have us at their mercy," he declared, "We can at best do little to defend ourselves."

"Let us reconnoitre," said Jolliet.

Taking some of the goods which they had brought along for presents, Jolliet bade the men wait their return and climbed the bank with the missionary. The path led through prairie grass, gay at that season with flowers. The delicate buttercup-like sensitive plant shrank from their feet in wet places. Neither 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 two leagues, the path drew near the wooded bank of a little stream draining into the Mississippi which they had scarcely noticed from the canoes. There they saw an Indian village, and farther off, up a hill, more groups of wigwams. They heard the voices of children, and nobody suspected their approach.

Jolliet and Marquette halted. Not knowing how else to announce their presence, they shouted together as loud as they could shout. The savages ran out of their wigwams and darted about in confusion until they saw the two motionless white men. The long black cassock of Marquette had instant effect upon them. For their trinkets and a few garments on their bodies showed that they had trafficked with Europeans.

Four old Indians, slowly and with ceremony, came out to meet the explorers, holding up curious pipes trimmed with many kinds of feathers. As soon as they drew near, Marquette called out to them in Algonquin:

"What tribe is this?"