First came Father Louis Hennepin and Anthony Auguelle, the Picard du Gay. They held the key to the northwest regions. Maps and observations, a new language and the right of discovery were all theirs.
Next, close on their trail, silently and secretly, sneaked old Aquipaguetin and ten of his warriors. They had the nine points which possession gives. They would not let any prisoners escape, no matter how reasonable their excuses might sound. No strangers should get away to tell the white race the secrets of the Sioux.
Far out of sight behind the warriors the hunting party, lured by King Charles's antics and Accau's purpose, straggled along the shore. A fortune in pelts was carelessly dragging in their untidy baggage.
Last of all there came swiftly down the stream a third canoe. Its appearance was one of those accidents which change the course of large events. In it were two Indian guides, a French gentleman and four of his followers.
The gentleman was the Sieur DuLuth. He was an agent for one of the Canadian fur companies and had been spending a year in the neighborhood of the west end of Lake Superior. He had planted the French arms in the waters where the first tributaries of the Mississippi rise and had claimed much new soil and found many haunts of small fur-bearing animals.
He was now roving south by way of the St. Croix River. It emptied into a magnificent stream, which he guessed must be the fabled Father of Waters. He stopped there to gossip with the squaws he saw. They told him that on this Great River some white men, prisoners of the Sioux, were only two days distant.
Sieur DuLuth knew the uncertain temper of the Sioux. Indeed it has never changed. There are old men now living on the shore where the Sieur DuLuth stood who can tell of their own youthful part in the Sioux wars of the 1860's when the Minnesota tribes behaved very much as Anthony saw them do.
"We must go to the rescue of these white men," the Sieur DuLuth had promptly decided, "and join forces with them. Together we will be able to interest the Indians in trading and so persuade them to make treaties."
In the mean time, Anthony and the friar were in doleful plight. They had no stores. Ten charges of powder were their only ammunition. They planned to keep it for self-defense. Instead of shooting game, they snared fish, captured turtles, chased woodchuck. Hunger was a constant companion. Wild fruits, of unknown species, made them ill. The hope of meeting the traders buoyed them. They bore each hardship as though it had been a blessing and went bravely on.
Little thinking that some one was all this time steadily following his course, coming nearer and nearer, Anthony seldom looked back.