"Men! Savage men!"
Now this thing happened many, many years before the days of Robinson Crusoe. That man Friday with the large historic feet was not yet born. This surprise was all the Frenchmen's own.
After coming for hundreds of miles in primeval loneliness and spending weeks without seeing a human face, these tracks filled the explorers with curiosity and with caution. They noted the traces with swift decision. All wanted to land and investigate.
"I must speak my message to every nation," said the priest, picking up his tiny altar.
"There is a path, well beaten, leading inland," the Sieur Joliet pointed out as he loaded himself with trinkets. "We two will go ahead and make friends. Stay offshore on guard, you others, until we send for you," and both leaders disappeared through the long grass of the rolling meadow.
After what seemed a wait of many hours, the impatient watchers saw upon the path the figure of an Indian youth running toward them. He stopped suddenly with hand outstretched when he neared the water's edge.
The interpreter gave him greeting in Algonquin, that common tongue of midwestern natives, "How welcome are the feet of the messenger who comes in friendship!"
The answer was in a boyish treble, a trifle breathless, in the language of the Illinois, a form of the Algonquin. The sentences were clear and so slowly spoken that in spite of their astonishment at the age of the runner they understood him. "How beautiful, O Frenchmen, is the sun when thou cometh to visit us! Our town awaits thee! Thou shalt enter our cabins in peace!" Having made the speech taught him, he held out a piece of white paper as a token of good faith.
So the explorers paddled in and gazed at the youth with interest. He was not as tall as Anthony, nor so heavy. He was straighter and more supple than any white boy could ever be. His head, tufted with a chieftain's scalp-lock, was set arrogantly on his slim round neck. No traveler, however observing, could have described his clothes. He hadn't any!