The old Sachem marveled much at this answer.
After several days of pleasant intercourse with the Illinois, the voyagers again took to their canoes and sailed southward towards the mouth of the Mississippi. Marquette left the little Indian boy behind him, for he did not wish to take him from his father. They had not gone very far, when they passed a rocky promontory where two great monsters had been painted upon the brown stones by some Indian artist.
“They are as large as a calf,” says Marquette in his diary. “They have horns on their heads like those of a deer, a horrible look, red eyes, a beard like a tiger, a face somewhat like a man’s, a body covered with scales, and so long a tail that it winds all around the body, passing above the head and going back between the legs, ending somewhat like a fish’s tail. Green, red, and black are the colors composing this picture.”
Fortunately there were no monsters in the country similar to these awful pictures, and the worst that the explorers encountered were dangerous masses of fallen trees, through which the canoes had a difficult time to wend a tortuous passage.
Near the mouth of the Ohio River the Frenchmen passed a part of the shore much dreaded by the redskins, who thought that an evil Manitou lived there, who devoured all travelers. The Illinois had warned the good priest to avoid the place. Yet the evil monster turned out to be a small bay full of dangerous rocks, through which the current of the river whirled about with a furious commotion, driving the canoes through a narrow channel filled with frothing spray and whirling spume. The couriers de bois sat tight, paddled hard, and pulled away from this peril.
Yet death soon stared the navigators in the face, for, when they reached the mouth of the Arkansas, armed warriors saw them, plunged into the river, and approached the two canoes, uttering fierce battle cries. Others came from the bank in wooden boats, hurling wooden clubs at the Frenchmen. Many redskins on the shore seized bows and arrows, pointing them at the explorers in a menacing manner. It was certainly a ticklish position and one that called for all the presence of mind that brave Pere Marquette possessed.
Rising in his canoe, the good priest held up the calumet, or peace pipe, which the Illinois had given him.
It apparently had no effect on the young braves, and they came swimming along, knives held in their teeth, ready and eager for a hand-to-hand battle in the muddy water.
Again the good priest raised the pipe of peace.
This time it had some effect, for some old men on the bank called to the young braves to desist in their attack, saying: