Imagine his astonishment when he received the command, "Bring me, Tony, a pot of ink and some quills."
The obedient Anthony, standing as assistant, with his gray eyes growing wider and wider with admiration, saw the Sieur Joliet set the quills to parchment. Under his skilful fingers there grew a picture of the course of the Great River as he recollected it. He drew its twists and turns, its distances and latitudes, put down the location and the names of the villages where he had received the calumet.
It was a curious document of amazing accuracy. From it grew the further history of the Mississippi. Whenever an adventurer wanted to go a-wandering he studied this map. To Western explorers it became their book of A B C.
III
SIX SIOUX
Marching into Captivity under the War-bonnets, Who Caught Friar Hennepin—A Manitou Becomes a Miller
THE cold nose of a dog nuzzled into Anthony's ear. He woke with a jerk. Peeping from under the brush screen of his camp he saw a file of canoes drifting in the moonlight. He crouched low, pistol in hand, and waited. No wild animal of the wood could have held itself motionless any better than the boy did. His two companions were asleep, weapons ready at their sides. The little dog, trained in a hard school, stood like a pointer.
The canoes came on. Each silhouetted a dozen war-bonnets against the silver river; then it slowly vanished. One by one they went down-stream. Anthony sighed with relief. His path was up-stream. How much better to have the warriors pass in the night than to meet them on the river!
For northern Indians promptly murdered any white men whom they found after dark. It was an easy way to win the steel knives which they coveted more than any other one thing. Travelers hid themselves at sunset, avoided prowlers in the gloaming, and tried to visit natives by day in villages known to be peaceful. The arms carried by a small trading party were of little use against a band of warriors.