marched together, to assail, to overwhelm, to utterly
destroy.

To destroy what? Why this wild protest of the wilderness? Was it this
wide-blown, scattered fire, whose sparks and ashes were sown broadcast,
till but stubborn remnants clung under the sheltering back-log of the
bivouac hearth? Was it this frail lodge, built upon pliant, yielding
poles, covered cunningly with mats and bark, carpeted with robe of elk
and buffalo? Yet why should the elements rage at a tiny fire, and why
should they tear at a little house of nomad man, since these things were
old upon the earth? Was it somewhat else that incited this elemental
rage? This might have been; for surely, builder of this hearth-fire
which would not quench, master of this house which would not yield,
there was now come up to the door of the wilderness the white man, risen
from the sea, heralding the day which the tribes had for generations
blindly prophesied! The white man, stern, stubborn, fruitful, had come
to despoil the West of its secrets!

Let all the elements therefore join in riotous revolt! Let earth and sea
and sky make common cause! Rage, waves, and blaze, ye fiery tongues,
and threaten, forests, with all your ominous voices! Smite, destroy, or
terrify into swift retreat this little band! Crush out their tenement!
Loosen and brush off this feeble finger-grasp at the ancient threshold!
With banners of flame, with armies of darkness, with shoutings of the
captains of the storms, assail, denude, destroy, if even by the agony of
their terrors, these feeble folk now come hither! And by this more
especially, since they would set the seal of fruitfulness upon the land,
and bring upon the earth a generation yet to follow. Hover about this
bed in the frail and swaying lodge of bark and boughs, all ye most
terrifying spirits! Let not this thing be!

"Mother of God!" cried Jean Breboeuf, bending low and pulling his tunic
tighter by the belt, as he came gasping into the faint circle of light
which still remained at the fire log. "'Tis murderous, this storm! Ah,
Monsieur du Mesne, we are dead men! But what matter? 'Tis as well now as
later. Said I not so to you all the way down Michiganon from the
Straits? A rabbit crossed my path at the last camp before
Michilimackinac, and when we took boat to leave the mission at the
Straits, three crows flew directly across our way. Did I not beseech you
to turn back? Did I not tell you, most of all, that we had no right,
hones