Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-10-29
Grief of the People.

sam of wild life were fain to cling to the
western shore whittier they had been car
ried by the advancing flood. This was the
meeting of the ebb with the sea that sent
it forward, the meeting of civilized and
savage; and strange enough was the ma
ture of those continent tides. Whether the
red men were yielding to civilization, or
the whites all turning Savage-this ques-
ton might we'll have arisen to an observer
of this tremendous spectacle. The wigwams
of the different tribes and clans and fami-
lies were grouped apart, scattered along all
the narrow shore back of the great hill, and
over the convent gardens and among these
stalked the native French clad In coarse
cloth of blue, with gaudy belt and buck
skins, and cap of fur and moccasins of hide,
mingling fraternally with their tufted and
bepainted visitors, as well as with those
rangers, both envied and hated, the savage
coureurs de bos of the far northern fur
trade; men bearded, silent stern, clad in
breech clout and leggings like any savage.
as silent, as stoical, as hardy on the trail
as on the narrow thwart of the canoe.
Savage, feasting, riotings and drunken
ness, and long debaucheries came with the
Great Peace, when once the word had gone
out that the fur trade was to be resumed.
Henceforth there was to be peace. The
French were no longer to raid the little
cabins along the Kennebec and the Penob-
scot. The river Richelieu was to be no
longer red war trail. The English were
no longer to offer arms and blankets for
the beaver belonging by right OF prior dis
covery to those who offered French brandy
and French beads The Iroquois were no
longer to pursue timid foe across the
great prairies of the valley of the Mes
sasebe. The Ojibways were not to ambush
the scattered parties of the Iroquois. The
unambitious colonists of New England and
New York were to be left to till their stony
farms in quiet. Meantime. the fur trade,
wasteful, licentious, Improbable, was to
extend onward and outward in all the
marches Of the west. From one end of the
Great River of the west to the other the
- 81 EN~ay, Sc, II
were to be erected, and Frances posts were
to hold all the ancient trails. Even at the
mouth of the Great River, forestalling
these sullen English and these sluggish
English cofonists, far to the south in the
somber forests and miasmatic marshes,
there was to be established one more ruling
point for the arms of Louis the Grand. 1t
was a great game this for which the con-
tinent of America was in preparation. 1t
was a mighty thing, this gathering of the
Great Peace. this time when colonists and
their king were seeing the first breaking
| of the wave on the shore of an empire al
| Turing, wonderful, unparalleled
Into this wild rabble of ssyages and citi-
zens, of priest and soldier and coureur,
Laws friends, Pierre Noir and Jean Bre-
| boeuf, swiftly disappeared. naturally. fifty
and unavoidaby. The west is calling to
us, monsieur" said Pierre Noir one morn
| ing, as he stood looking out across the
river. II hear once more the spirits of the
Messasebe. Monsieur will you Gomez"
| Law shook his head. Yet two days later,
| as he stood at that very point, there came
| to him the silent feet of two coureurs in
stead of one. Once more he heard in his
ear the question: Monsieur Las, will you
Gomez"
At this voice he started. In an instant his
| arms were about the neck of Du Mesne,
ard tears were falling from the eyes of
| both In the welcome of that brotherhood
which Is admitted only by those who have
known together arms and danger and hard
| ship, the touch of the hard ground and the
| sight of the wide blue sky.
"Du Mesne my friend!'
! Monsieur L'as!"
'1t is as though you came from the
| depths of the sea, Du Mesne!' said Law.
| And as though you yourself arose from
| the grave, monsieur
How did you Know?
why, easily. You do not yet understand
] the ways of the wilderness, where news
1 travels as fast as in the cities. You were
hardly below the foot of Michiganon before
runners from the Ilini had spread the news
along the Chicaqua. where was then In
camp. For the rest. the runners brought
also news OF the Big Peace. reasoned
that the Iroquois would not dare to destroy
! their eaptiyes. that in time the agents of
I the government would receive the captives
of the Iroquois-that these captives would
naturally come to the settlements on the
st. Lawrence, since It was the French