Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1904-04-21


those continent tides. Whether the
red men we're yielding to civilization,
or the whites all turning savage this
question might we'll have arisen to an
observer of this tremendous spectacle.
The wigwams of the different tribes
and clans and families were grouped
apart, scattered along all the mar
row 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 buckskins, and cap of fur and
moccasins of hide, mingling frater-
nally with their tufted and bepainted
visitors, as we'll as with those rangers,
both envied and hated, the savage
coureurs de bois of the far northern
fur trade; men bearded, silent, stern.
clad in breech-ciout and leggings like
any savage, as silent, as stoical, as
hardy on the trail as on the narrow
thwart Of the canoe.
Savage Hastings, riotings and drunk
enness, 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 Penobscot. The
river Ricnelieu was to be no longer
red war trail The English We're no
longer to offer arms and blankets for
the beaver, belonging by right of prior
discovery to those who offered French
TIL
quois were no longer to pursue a
timid foe across the great prairies of
the valley of the Messasebe The
| Oiibways were not to ambush the scat
tered parties of the Iroquois. The un-
ambitious ,colonists of New England
and New York were to be left to till
their stony farms in quiet. Meantime.
the fur trade, wasteful, licentious, I'M
profitable, was to extend onward an0
outward in all the marches of the. West
From one end of the Great River OF
the West to the other the insignia Oh
France and of Frances king were tc
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 colonists, 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 great game
this, for which the continent of Amer
lea 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 alluring, wonderful, unpar-
alleled
Into this wild rabble of savages and
citizens, of priest and soldier and
coureur, Laws friends, Pierre Noir
and Jean Breboeuf, swiftly disap-
peared. naturally, fifty and unavoid
ably. THE West is calling to US, Mon
sieur," said Pierre Noir one morning,
as he stood looking cut across the
river 4 hear once more the spirits
OF the Messasebe. Monsieur, viii you
oome?'
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 instead Of one. Once more
he heard in his ear the question:
Monsieur Las. will you Gomez"
At this voice he started. In an in
slant his arms were about the neck of
Du Mesne, and 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 hardship, the touch of
the hard ground and the sight of the
wide blue sky
''Du Mesne, my friend!o
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
ssWhy, easily. You do not understand
the ways of the wilderness, where news
travels as fast as in the cities. You
were hardly below the foot of Michiga-
non before runners from the Him had
spread the news along the Chicaqua,
where l 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 captiyes, that in time the agents
of the government Y ould receive the
captives of the IrOuuois- these
captives would naturally come to the
settlements on the ST. Lawrence, since
it was the French against whom the
| Iroquois had been at war; that having
come to Montreal, you would naturally
remain here for a time. The rest was
easy. ! Jared on to the straits this
spring, and then on down the lakes. |
have sold our fs'sss, and am now ready
to account to yfpu with sum quite
as much as we Should have expected.
Now, Monsieur and Du Mesne
| stretched out his arm again. DOinting