Page:Columbus and other heroes of American discovery; (IA columbusotherher00bell).pdf/148

 the northern shores of Lake Michigan, which long formed a "key to the West, and rendezvous to the distant Algonquins under the protection of the French."

In 1670, leaving Allouez and Dablon to continue their explorations in Eastern Wisconsin and Northern Illinois, Marquette at last started for the South, accompanied by Joliet, a trader from Quebec, five young Frenchmen eager for adventure, and two Algonquin guides. Crossing Green Bay in birch-bark canoes, the little band of explorers ascended the Fox river, flowing into Lake Michigan on the west, for some little distance, and then crossed the country to the Wisconsin, on the banks of which they were very kindly received by a number of old men belonging to the Kickapoo, Mascoutin, and other tribes.

Here the guides, afraid to enter the Sioux territories and to face the horrors of the unknown South, returned to their homes, and the Europeans embarked alone upon the Wisconsin, down which they paddled for several days, eagerly scanning the prairies on either side for the first traces of the wild tribes of whom they had heard. Not a sign of human life was seen, however, until they came to the junction of the Wisconsin with the Mississippi itself. They found the great river without difficulty, and, to quote Marquette's own words, "they happily entered it with a joy that can not be expressed."

Down the glorious river, between the modern States of Iowa and Illinois, the two little canoes now floated, till, about sixty leagues below the mouth of the Wisconsin, our heroes noticed the trail of men on the western bank of the Mississippi. Determined at once to learn something of the people of the newly-discovered districts, Marquette and Joliet hastened to land, and, crossing one of the beautiful prairies of Iowa, they soon came to a group of three villages, one on the bank of a river, and two on a hill a little distance off. The river was the Moingona, now called Des Moines.

Four old men now advanced from the village on the stream, bearing with them the calumet of peace, a tobacco pipe, with a reed stem some two or three feet in length, ornamented with many colored feathers. Already familiar with this sign of amity, the white men knew they had now nothing to fear. The villagers were Illinois, which is the Indian word for "men;" and men they quickly proved themselves to be. Conducted to the wigwam of an aged chief, the French explorers were plied with eager questions; and when they told of the breaking of the power of the Iroquois by the "great