Where the Messipi went was one of the chief things the French wanted the Sieur Joliet to learn. This speech of the sachem was telling him exactly what he wished to know.
"Savage Indians, in league with white men who do not observe the calumet, infest the waters of the Gulf," was the sachem's next sinister hint.
If the Frenchmen and their maps fell into the hands of their rivals, Spain could claim and take immense territory just explored by the agents of France. How might seven men in birch bark hold out against the cutlasses and "six-pounders" of a galleon?
To keep what one has gained is better than to lose all in trying to win more. The Sieur Joliet gave one glance at the low-hanging pole-star, one word of command to his followers, and before his doubtful hosts could form a plan for or against him the explorers were paddling with all speed up the Mississippi beyond the chance of pursuit.
The Wingèd One fed his pigeon chinkapin, which he called chechinquamin, with royal unconcern, but Anthony did his work nervously. "I am always kind to our slave," he thought, as he watched the little Indian with pity, "but I cannot be sure how the Spaniards will treat me if they catch us."
Slavery in various forms has been part of the Great River's life. After the news of its discovery had spread and vessels from many lands dragged their anchors at its mouth, captives red, white, brown, yellow, and black were traded to anybody and everybody for kegs of rum, or hogsheads of molasses, or bundles of tobacco.
Among the pioneers who later came to settle the prairies and woodlands of its fertile shores were numerous bound children, indentured servants and redemptioners. Then ship-load upon ship-load of stolen African negroes were brought to the fields of the South when the invention of the cotton-gin made their labor profitable. For nearly two hundred years the river washed away the tears of hapless bondsmen.
To escape any native pursuers whom his enemies might send after him the Sieur Joliet led his men up the Illinois River to the Chakakou, which the glaciers had twisted to run into Lake Michigan, but which daring modern engineers have turned back again as it was in the very beginning, so that nowadays the system of the Great Lakes is partly drained into the Great River by the same Chicago, a geographical condition which was not true when Anthony helped to draw it on the maps.
Père Marquette went on to his Indians at Mackinaw. Sieur Joliet took Anthony and the little slave and one coureur de bois and kept on down toward Quebec to report. When at last they came near Montreal, full of the triumph of their great discovery, they had paddled, since the beginning of their venture, something like three thousand miles. It was two years since the leader had left this fort for the West.
It was an autumn morning. Brilliantly colored forests lined the shores, and between two big rocks, like a cathedral door, the rapids ahead sparkled in a vista of incomparable loveliness. Over them flights of migrating pigeons winged their way. The pet on the little slave's wrist cooed an instinctive answer to their call, rose in a flash of silver and soared into their midst.