Canada was two thousand miles away, but there were friends there, and the brave leader could not bear to see his countrymen suffering when it might be possible to bring them help. The little party of twenty was not very well equipped for a long journey through a strange country. They had to make clothing of the sails of one of the vessels; their shoes were of buffalo-hide and deer-skin; they had to make boats of skin to cross the swollen rivers, and they depended for food upon the game they could find. And so their progress was very slow, and it took them two months to reach Trinity River.
But hardship was not the only thing that La Salle had to bear on this wearying march. Part of the men became dissatisfied with him, and rebelled against his authority. They killed his nephew and a faithful Indian servant while they were absent from the camp on a hunting expedition, and when La Salle appeared and asked where his nephew was, one of the murderers raised his gun and shot their leader dead.
La Salle was one of the bravest and noblest of the French explorers. If he had been allowed to carry out his plans, France would have been stronger and richer in America than it was ever her fortune to become. It was ten years after his death before any other attempt was made to settle the Mississippi Valley.
To La Salle belongs the honor of being the first European to sail from the upper part of the Mississippi down to the Gulf of Mexico, and it was he who started that spirit of adventure which led to so many Frenchmen devoting their lives to the exploration of the great river and its many branches, thus making the western part of the country familiar to the Europeans, and laying the foundations of the French power in the valley of the Mississippi; and laying, at the same time, the foundations of that firm and lasting friendship with the Indians which was the strongest safeguard of the French in America; for all the tribes along the great river and on the shores of the northern lakes grew to love and reverence the French name.
They looked upon them as brothers, for they came to their humble villages and led the same simple lives that they themselves led. They hunted and fished with them, wore the same kind of clothing, and slept contentedly in their rude wigwams. They talked with them in their own language, and called their lakes and streams by their poetical Indian names. They even married the daughters of their race, and the kindly French priests knew no difference between white man and red man, but ministered to all alike. The Indians freely entered the little chapels that were scattered up and down along the river, and lovingly hung the cross with flowers; and little Indian children were brought there to be baptized, just as the little French children were, and all was peace and harmony. And the calumet never passed from chief to chief but as a sign of peace, and of the abiding friendship which began when Marquette was greeted by the Illinois chief with hands raised toward heaven, as if calling down the blessing of the Great Spirit upon the meeting.
[CHAPTER XXIII.]
THE STORY OF ACADIA.
Once upon a time, in a country in the north dwelt a very happy race of people. The land did not lie so far north but that it had bright springs and sunny summers, and all through the valleys lay pretty little villages surrounded with orchards and fields and meadows. And little dark-eyed children wandered through the orchards in the morning sunshine, and broke off boughs of pink-tinted blossoms whereon the dew lay not yet dried, and through green-carpeted fields, where the young grain waved, and through the high meadow-grass, gathering daisies and sweet, wild forget-me-nots. All day long the place was bright and happy with children's faces and children's voices.
