h that is mouldering under the rains and sunshine of the skies they
loved. In another generation all that can be said will be--here once
stood the historic stones of the ancient fireside of the heroes who won
the wilderness for those who have allowed this monument of their
fortitude and self-sacrifice to crumble into dust.

[Illustration: La Salle]

La Salle had heard from some stray bands of Seneca Indians, who had
visited his post at Lachine, of a great river that flowed from their
hunting grounds to the sea. Imagining it would open his way to find the
route to the golden Ind, he sold his grant at Lachine, and in company
with two priests from the Seminary at Montreal, and some Senecas as
guides, started on July 6th, 1669. With visions of finding for France a
clime of warmer suns and more rich in silver and gold than Canada, he
pushed on. The priests on their return brought back nothing of any
value except the first map procured of the upper lake region.

One of the most enthusiastic fellow travelers of La Salle was a
Franciscan, Father Hennepin. They crossed the ocean from France
together, and probably beguiled many an hour of the long voyage in
relating their dreams of finding the treasures hidden in the land to
which the prow of the vessel pointed.

Hennepin also penetrated to the Mississippi, reaching in his wanderings
a beautiful fall foaming between its green bluffs which he named St.
Anthony, on which spot now stands the "Flour City," Minneapolis, in the
county of Hennepin, Minnesota. He probably heard of the other falls,
five miles away, which we know as Minnehaha, and around which the
sweetest of American poets has woven the witchery of Indian legend in
the wooing of "Hiawatha." It seems almost incredible that where are now
the largest flour mills in the world, turning out daily about 40,000
barrels, there was, scarcely fifty years ago, only the cedar strewn
wigwam and smoke of the camp fire, the tread of moccasined feet and the
dip of the paddles by the bark canoe.

Near by _Place d'Armes_ Square may be seen a grey stone house on which
is written "Here lived Sieur DuLuth." He was a leading spirit among the
young men of the town, who gathered around his fireside to listen to his
thrilling tales of adventure, and of his early life when he was a
_gendarme_ in the King's Guard. Coming to Canada in the year 1668, he
explored among the Sioux tribes of the Western plains. He was one of the
first Frenchmen to ap