eye might reach, there arose no fleck of snowy
canvas, nor showed the dark line of any similar craft propelled by oar
or paddle. They were alone, these travelers. Before them, at the
entrance of the wide arm of the great lake Michiganon, lay the point
even at that early day known as the Door of the West, the beginning of
the winding water-way which led on into the interior of that West, then
so alluring and unknown. The eyes of all were fixed on the low,
white-fronted bluffs, crowned by dark forest growth, which guarded the
bay at either hand. This spot, so wild, so remote, so significant--it
was home for these _voyageurs_ as much as any; as much, too, for Law and
the woman who lay back, pale-faced and wide-eyed, among the bales in the
great canoe.

In time the graceful craft approached the beach, on which the long waves
rolled and curled, now gently, now with imposing force. With the water
yet half-leg deep, Du Mesne and two of the paddlers sprang bodily
overboard and held the boat back from the pebbles, so that its tender
shell might not be damaged. Law himself was as soon as they in the
water, and he waded back along the gunwale until he reached the stern,
the water nearly up to his hips. Reaching out his arms, he picked up
Mary Connynge from her seat and carried her dry-shod ashore, bending
down to catch some whispered word. Not so gallant was Du Mesne, the
leader of the _voyageurs_. He uttered a few short words of semi-command
to the Indian woman, who had been seated on the floor of the canoe, and
she, without protest, crawled forward over the thwarts and the heaped
bundles until she reached the bow, and then went ankle deep into the
creaming flood. The great canoe, left empty and anchored safe from the
pebbles of the beach, tossed light as a cork on the incoming waves.

A little open space was quickly found at the edge of the cove in which
the disembarkation was made, and here Du Mesne and his followers soon
kicked away the twigs and leveled out a smooth place upon the grass.
Each man produced from his belt a broad-bladed knife, and for the moment
disappeared in the deep fringe of evergreens which lined the shore.
Fairly in the twinkling of an eye a rude frame of bent poles was made,
above which were spread strips of unrolled birch bark from the cargo of
the canoe. Over the spaces left uncovered by the supply of bark sheets
there were laid down long mats made by Indian hands from dried reeds and
bulrushes, afford