A black-robed priest, a young fur trader, five Frenchmen, and a young Indian boy sat in two birch-bark canoes on the broad current of the Mississippi River one summer evening. Having eaten a hurried supper beside a camp-fire on the bank, they paddled on down the darkening river so that the fire might not betray them to Indian enemies. Night overtook them and they anchored their canoes in midstream. Leaving one man on guard, the rest of the party made themselves as comfortable as possible in the narrow boats and tried to get some sleep.
The sentinel sat silent in his canoe, but with every sense alert. Through the long hours of night he watched with keen eye for unnatural shadows in the dim light of moon or stars and listened for sound of paddle or stir of wild animals. The adventurers were in a strange country and they knew not what dangers might lurk beside them while they slept.
The Indian boy, into whose valley the strangers had come, knew the ways of the night upon river and shore, but he was now in strange company. It may be that he, too, was awake, thinking over in his childish heart the curious ways of these white men. The Peoria village where he had so lately made his home was many leagues up the river. What lands were they coming to? When would the monsters of the river, of whom his people had told him, swallow them, canoes and all, into a terrible death?
When a certain constellation crossed the zenith the sentinel reached over and waked one of his comrades, then joined the others in sleep. At length the darkness began to lift, as to the left the faint light of dawn crept up over the rocky bank of the river. Soon the Frenchmen awoke, took to their paddles, and began another day’s journey.
Each stroke of the paddles carried the Indian boy farther from his home and nearer the monsters of the great river. By training a keen observer, he looked up at a steep wall of rock and caught sight of two strange and fearsome figures. Terror possessed him, for he knew he was in the presence of the dread beings of which his people had warned him. There, painted on the rocks in red, black, and green colors, were two monsters as large as buffalo calves. They had faces like men, but with horrible red eyes, and beards like those of bull buffalo; and on their heads were horns like the horns of deer. Scales covered their bodies; and their tails were so long that they wound about the body and over the head and, going back between their legs, ended in the tail of a fish.
It was as if the Indian boy were alone with an evil spirit, for no Indian was near him. He could ask the white men no questions. They, too, now saw the dread animals; and with much pointing and excitement began to talk among themselves, but in a tongue the Indian boy could not understand. Not daring to look long at the pictured rock, he turned his face away and sat in his narrow seat uncomforted and filled with that mystic awe which only people of his own race could feel. The white men talked on as the canoes swept smoothly downstream.
Suddenly as they talked a dull roar met their ears, growing louder as they descended the river until they saw a great opening in the bank at the right and a broad river pour in from the northwest to join them. It was the Missouri coming down from the mountains a thousand miles away and hurling into the Mississippi a mass of mud and debris, huge branches, and even whole trees. The two canoes dodged here and there, while the men at the paddles, alert now and forgetful of painted dragons, drove their craft now to the right, now to the left, swerved to avoid a great tree, or paddled for their lives to outrace a mass of brush. Vigorous work alone saved them.
Out of danger, the adventurers fell to wondering from what lands came the mighty stream. The stout-hearted Marquette vowed to stem its powerful current at some future day and follow its waters to their source, thinking that he might thus find another stream which would take him westward into the great Vermilion Sea that lay on the road to China. But the Indian boy did not easily forget the monsters on the rocks, and he still looked about him with apprehensive glances.
It was not many leagues farther down the stream that the voyagers came to another of the fearful dangers of which the Peorias had warned them—a place in the river where, according to Indian legend, there lived a demon who devoured travelers and sucked them down into the troubled depths. As they approached the dreaded spot, they saw a fierce surging of the waters, driven with terrific force into a small cove. Rocks rose high out of the stream; and against these the river dashed mightily, tossing foam and spray into the air. Balked in their course, the waters paused, then hurled themselves down into a narrow channel.
To the Indian mind, which saw life and humanity, good spirits and bad, in all of nature, there was an evil spirit in these turbulent waters. It was with the eyes of his own race that the Indian boy now watched the high-tossed spray. But the two canoes passed by in safety and soon came to smoother waters.
Presently the voyagers drew near the broad mouth of the Ohio, in whose valley, raided from time to time by fierce tribes of the Iroquois, were the villages of the Shawnee Indians. Along the shores were canes and reeds that grew thick and high. Mosquitoes began to gather in swarms that made life miserable for the men as they toiled in the heat of the day. But following the way of the Indians of the Southern country, they raised above their canoes tents of canvas which sheltered them in part from both the mosquitoes and the burning sun.
So sailing, they came one day unexpectedly upon a group of armed Indians. Up rose Marquette and held high the pipe of peace, while Joliet and his comrades reached for their guns to be ready should an attack be made. This time, however, they were safe; for the Indians were only inviting them to come ashore and eat. The voyagers landed and were led to the village, where the Indians fed them upon buffalo meat and white plums.
It was evident that these Indians were acquainted with white men, and that they bought goods of traders from the East; for they had knives and guns and beads and cloth and hatchets and hoes, and even glass flasks for their powder. Venturesome Englishmen from the Atlantic Coast had perhaps sold them these things in exchange for furs. With the Spanish firmly settled in the Southwest, and the English—long-time enemies of France—pushing in from the East, it was high time that the French came down the river, if the Great Valley of the Mississippi were ever to be brought under the flag of France.
The Indians now told Marquette and Joliet that the great sea to the south was only ten days’ journey away; and so with renewed energy the band of eight set out once more in their canoes. Huge cottonwoods and elms now lined either shore, and bright-plumaged birds darted from limb to limb; while in the hidden prairies beyond could be heard the bellowing of wild buffalo.
As they drew near a village of Michigamea Indians, whose lodges were almost at the water’s edge, the voyagers heard the savage yells of warriors inciting one another to an attack. Soon they swarmed along the shore with bows and arrows, and with hatchets and great war clubs. In vain did Marquette hold up the calumet of peace. Downstream the Indians climbed into their long dugouts and pushed up to attack the strangers from below; while upstream other young warriors launched their wooden canoes and swept down the river with hoarse cries of battle. Hemmed in by the two war parties in boats, and with armed enemies howling along the river bank, death seemed very near to the Frenchmen. The warning words of the Peoria chief had told them of just such an end.
Perhaps the twinkling lights of the Canadian river towns and the smiling face of France had never seemed so far away as now in these untraveled stretches of the Great Valley. And the Indian lad—before him lay either death or captivity. In just such scenes as this he had passed from tribe to tribe. It may be that his young mind now carried him back to the village where the smoke rose from the lodges of his own people, where his own mother had unloosed the thongs that bound him to the cradle of his papoose days, and taught him to run over the green prairies and in the cool woods with the other lads, learning to draw a bow and trap wild creatures of the forest and roll about in the sun, naked and healthy and happy.
But this was not a time to think of other days. A handful of young braves threw themselves into the river to seize the small canoes of the white men; but finding the current too strong, they put back to the shore. One raised his club and hurled it at the black-robed priest. Whirling through the air it passed over the canoes and fell with a splash into the river. Nearer and nearer closed the net of enemies about them, until from every side bows began to bend and arrows drew back, tipped with death.
Suddenly their weapons dropped. Older men among them, perhaps recognizing for the first time the pipe of peace which Marquette still held, restrained the impetuous young braves. Coming to the water’s edge as the white men drew nearer, two chiefs tossed their bows and quivers into the canoes and invited the strangers to come ashore in peace.
With signs and gestures Indians and white men talked. In vain did Marquette try, one after another, the six Indian languages which he knew. At length there came forward an old man who spoke a broken Illinois tongue. Through him Marquette asked many questions about the lower river and the sea. But the Indians only replied that the strangers could learn all they wished at a village of the Arkansas Indians, about ten leagues farther down the stream. The explorers were fed with sagamite and fish; and, not without some fear, they spent the night in the Indian village.
The next morning they continued their journey, taking the old man with them as an interpreter; and ahead of them went a canoe with ten Indians. They had not gone many leagues when they saw two canoes coming up the river to meet them. In one stood an Indian chief who held a calumet and made signs of peace. Chanting a strange Indian song, he gave the white men tobacco to smoke and sagamite and bread made from Indian corn to eat. Under the direction of their new guides the Frenchmen soon came to the village of the Arkansas, which lay near the mouth of the river of that name.
Here under the scaffold of the chief they were given seats on fine rush mats. In a circle about them were gathered the elders of the tribe; and around about the elders were the warriors; and beyond the warriors in a great crowd were the rest of the tribe eager to see and hear the strange men who had come down from the north. Among the young men was one who spoke the Illinois tongue better than the old man, and through him Marquette talked to the tribe. In his talk he told of the white man’s religion, and of the great French chief who had sent them down the valley of the Mississippi.
Then he asked them all manner of questions about the trip to the sea. Was it many days’ journey now? And what tribes were on the way?
It was only on occasions like this that the Indian boy understood what was said, for usually his companions in the canoes spoke the melodious but to him wholly unintelligible French. He now listened to the Illinois tongue with keen interest. The young interpreter was telling of their neighbors to the north and east and south and west. Four days’ journey to the west was the village of an Illinois tribe, and to the east were other friendly people from whom they bought hatchets, knives, and beads. But toward the great sea to the south, where the white men wished to go, were their enemies. Savage tribes with guns barred them from trade with the Spaniards. All along the lower river the fierce tribes were continually fighting; and woe betide the white men if they ventured farther, for they would never return.
As the Indians told of the dangers of the river below the mouth of the Arkansas River, large platters of wood were continually being brought in, heaped with sagamite, Indian corn, and the flesh of dogs. Nor did the feast end before the close of day.
Meditating upon the warnings of their hosts, the white men made ready for the night. When they had retired on beds raised about two feet from the ground at the end of their long bark-covered lodge, the Indians held a secret council. Some of the warriors had looked with envious eyes upon the canoes, clothes, and presents of the whites. Why not fall upon the strangers by night, beat out their brains with skull-crackers or Indian war clubs, and make away with the plunder? To some of the covetous Indians it was a tempting plan. The whites were defenseless and hundreds of leagues from their friends. Who was there to avenge their death?
But to the chief, who had welcomed the visitors with the pipe of peace, the bond of friendship was sacred. He broke up the schemes of the treacherous braves, dismissed the council, and sent for the white men. Then with the pipe of peace in his hand he danced before the strangers the sacred calumet dance; and as he closed the ceremony he gave into the hands of Marquette the calumet. It was a token, sacred among all Indians, that peace should not be broken, and that the whites would be unharmed.
The Frenchmen, however, did not sleep much. Joliet and the priest sat up far into the night and counseled together as to whether they should go on to the sea or turn back. They were now very near to the sea, they thought—so near that they were confident that the river continued southward to the Gulf of Mexico, instead of turning to the west or east to the Vermilion Sea or the Atlantic Ocean. Indeed, they believed that in two or three days they might reach the Gulf.
But in the country between the mouth of the Arkansas and the mouth of the Mississippi skulked fierce and murderous tribes; while not far away were the Spaniards. Should they fall into the hands of enemies and lose their lives, who would tell to France the story of their marvelous journeyings? Their beloved nation would lose all knowledge of their expedition and therefore all claim to the Great Valley by right of their exploration. Then, too, there seemed little more to be learned in traveling the balance of the way to the mouth. Joliet was anxious to report to his government the story of the expedition, and Marquette was full of eagerness to tell his brother priests of the Indians whom he had met and the great work that lay open to their missionary efforts.
As a matter of fact, the voyagers were many a long day’s journey from the river’s mouth. But happy in the thought that they were nearly there, Joliet and the priest at last determined to turn back upstream and carry to New France the wonderful tale of their pioneer voyage down the great untraveled river.