THE RIVER AND ITS EXPLORERS.

13

The voyagers moved cautiously : ' Landed at night and made a
tire to cook their evening meal; then extinguished it, embarked
again, paddled some way farther, and anchored in the stream, keeping
a man on the watch bill morning.'
They did this day after day and night after night; and at the end
of two weeks they had not seen a human being. The river was an
awful solitude, then. And it is now, over most of its stretch.
But at the close of the fortnight they one day came upon the foot-
prints of men in the mud of the western bank—a Robinson Crusoe
experience which carries an electric shiver with it yet, when one

ANCHORED  IN  THE  STKEAM.
stumbles on it in print. They had been warned that the river
Indians were as ferocious and pitiless as the river demon, and de-
stroyed all comers without waiting for provocation ; but no matter,
Joliet and Marquette struck into the country to hunt up the proprie-
tors of the tracks. They found them, by-and-bye, and were hospitably
received and well treated—if to be received by an Indian chief who
has taken off his last rag in order to appear at his level best is to be
received hospitably ; and if to be treated abundantly to fish, porridge,
and other game, including dog, and have these things forked into
one's mouth by the ungloved fingers of Indians is to be well treated.