as been preached to all these tribes for
some years past, I trust we may find good Christians among them."

"What else have you learned about the country?"

"Father Dablon told me that the way to the head of that river called
Fox, up which we must paddle, is as hard as the way to heaven, specially
the rapids. But when you arrive there it is a natural paradise."

"We have tremendous labor before us," mused Jolliet. "Father, did you
ever have speech with that Jean Nicollet, who, first of any Frenchman,
got intimations of the great river?"

"I never saw him."

"There was a man I would have traveled far to see, though he was long a
renegade among savages, and returned to the settlements only to die."

"Heaven save this expedition from becoming renegade among savages by
forgetting its highest object!" breathed Marquette.

His companion smiled toward the pleasant fire-light. Jolliet had once
thought of becoming a priest himself. He venerated this young apostle,
only half a dozen years his senior. But he was glad to be a free
adventurer, seeking wealth and honor; not foreseeing that though the
great island of Anticosti in the Gulf of St. Lawrence would be given
him for his services, he would die a poor and neglected man.

When, after days of steady progress, the expedition entered the Bay
of Puans, now called Green Bay, and found the nation of Menomonies or
Wild Oats Indians, Marquette was as much interested as Jolliet in the
grain which gave these people their bread. It grew like rice, in marshy
places, on knotted stalks which appeared above the water in June and
rose several feet higher. The grain seed was long and slender and
made plentiful meal. The Indians gathered this volunteer harvest in
September, when the kernels were so ripe that they dropped readily into
canoes pushed among the stalks. They were then spread out on lattice
work and smoked to dry the chaff, which could be trodden loose when the
whole bulk, tied in a skin bag, was put into a hollow in the ground made
for that purpose. The Indians pounded their grain to meal and cooked it
with fat.

The Menomonies tried to prevent Marquette and Jolliet from going
farther. They said the great river was dangerous, full of frightful
monsters that swallowed both men and canoes; that there was a roaring
demon in it who could be heard for leagues; and the heat was so intense
in those southern countries through which it flowed, that if the
Frenchmen escaped all othe