g bogs and unknown marshes; yet still, whether by patience, or by
cheerfulness, or by determination, the craft stood on and on, and so
reached that end of the waterway which, in the opinion of the more
experienced Du Mesne, must surely be the place known among the Indian
tribes as the "Place for the carrying of boats."

Here they paused for a few days, at that mild summit of land which marks
the portage between the east bound and the west bound waters; yet,
impelled ever by the eager spirit of the adventurer, they made their
pause but short. In time they launched their craft on the bright, smooth
flood of the river of the Ouisconsins, stained coppery-red by its
far-off, unknown course in the north, where it had bathed leagues of the
roots of pine and tamarack and cedar. They passed on steadily westward,
hour after hour, with the current of this great stream, among little
islands covered with timber; passed along bars of white sand and flats
of hardwood; beyond forest-covered knolls, in the openings of which one
might now and again see great vistas of a scenery now peaceful and now
bold, with turreted knolls and sweeping swards of green, as though some
noble house of old England were set back secluded within these wide and
well-kept grounds. The country now rapidly lost its marshy character,
and as they approached the mouth of the great stream, it being now well
toward the middle of the summer, they reached, suddenly and without
forewarning, that which they long had sought.

The sturdy paddlers were bending to their tasks, each broad back
swinging in unison forward and back over the thwart, each brown throat
bared to the air, each swart head uncovered to the glare of the midday
sun, each narrow-bladed paddle keeping unison with those before and
behind, the hand of the paddler never reaching higher than his chin,
since each had learned the labor-saving fashion of the Indian canoeman.
The day was bright and cheery, the air not too ardent, and across the
coppery waters there stretched slants of shadow from the embowering
forest trees. They were alone, these travelers; yet for the time at
least part of them seemed care-free and quite abandoned to the sheer
zest of life. There arose again, after the fashion of the _voyageurs_,
the measure of the paddling song, without which indeed the paddler had
not been able to perform his labor at the thwart.

"_Dans mon chemin j'ai rencontre_--"

chanted the leader; and voices behi