paddler answered. "Look to thy scalp, lad, for here
is the Indian!"

There was no feathered head in ambush, but they saw moccasin prints in
the low moist margin and a path leading up to the prairie.

Marquette and Jolliet held the boats together while they consulted.

"Do you think it wise to pass by without searching what this may mean,
Father?"

"No, I do not. We might thus leave enemies behind our backs to cut off
our return. Some Indian village is near. It would be my counsel to
approach and offer friendship."

"Shall we take the men?" debated Jolliet. "Two of them at least should
stay to guard the canoes."

"Let them all stay to guard the canoes. If we go unarmed and unattended,
we shall not raise suspicion in the savages' minds."

"But we may raise suspicion in our own minds."

Marquette laughed.

"The barbarous people on this unexplored river have us at their mercy,"
he declared, "We can at best do little to defend ourselves."

"Let us reconnoitre," said Jolliet.

Taking some of the goods which they had brought along for presents,
Jolliet bade the men wait their return and climbed the bank with the
missionary. The path led through prairie grass, gay at that season
with flowers. The delicate buttercup-like sensitive plant shrank from
their feet in wet places. Neither Frenchman had yet seen the deadly
rattlesnake of these southern countries, singing as a great fly might
sing in a web, dart out of its spotted spiral to fasten a death bite
upon a victim. They walked in silence, dreading only the human beings
they were going to meet. When they had gone about two leagues, the
path drew near the wooded bank of a little stream draining into the
Mississippi which they had scarcely noticed from the canoes. There
they saw an Indian village, and farther off, up a hill, more groups of
wigwams. They heard the voices of children, and nobody suspected their
approach.

Jolliet and Marquette halted. Not knowing how else to announce their
presence, they shouted together as loud as they could shout. The savages
ran out of their wigwams and darted about in confusion until they saw
the two motionless white men. The long black cassock of Marquette had
instant effect upon them. For their trinkets and a few garments on their
bodies showed that they had trafficked with Europeans.

Four old Indians, slowly and with ceremony, came out to meet the
explorers, holding up curious pipes trimmed with many kinds of feathers.
As s