the savages drew nearer, they let fly a volley of arrows at the missionary. All gashed and rent with wounds, with arrows still sticking in his flesh, he addressed to them, with surprising energy, the affectionate messages of divine mercy and grace. Then the fatal blow was given, and he died with the name of Jesus on his lips. The wilderness furnished him a grave, and the Huron nation were his mourners.

Next year, the villages of St. Ignatius and St. Louis were destroyed by the Iroquois. In the latter village were Brebeuf and Lallemand. Both might have escaped had they not remained behind to bend over the dying converts and give them baptism. They were made prisoners. Brebeuf was set apart on a scaffold, and, despite every indignity and outrage offered him, rebuked his persecutors and encouraged the Huron converts. They cut off his lower lip and nose, applied burning torches to his body, burned his gums and thrust hot irons down his throat. Deprived of his voice, his assuring countenance and confiding eye still bore witness to his firmness. The delicate Lallemand was stripped naked and enveloped from head to foot with bark full of rosin. Brought into the presence of Brebeuf, he exclaimed:

"We are made a spectacle unto the world and to angels and to men."

The fine bark was set on fire and when it was in a blaze, boiling water was poured on the heads of both the missionaries. The voice of Lallemand was choked by the thick smoke; but the fire having snapped his bands, he lifted his hands to heaven, imploring the aid of Him who ever gives strength to the weak. Brebeuf was scalped while still alive, and died after a torture of three hours; but some historians state that the sufferings of Lallemand were protracted for seventeen hours. Thus went out the lives of two, who had been heroes in the cause of their Master, and whose deaths were the astonishment of their executioners.

Massacres and persecutions quenched not the enthusiasm. The Jesuits never receded one foot; but, as in a brave army, new troops press forward to fill the places of the fallen, there were never wanting heroism and enterprise in behalf of the Cross and French dominion.

The French were bold and aggressive. In 1654, two young traders went from Quebec to the wilderness far westward toward the Mississippi River, where they remained for two years and returned with fifty canoes and a number of Indians. Their marvellous accounts of the magnificent countries which they had traversed excited great enthusiasm, and the Church and State determined to possess that goodly land.

Father Alloüez, a daring Jesuit,

went boldly into that region. He proclaimed the king of France as sovereign of the Chippewas, and built mission houses in their country. He preached to the fiery Sioux, and from them heard of the magnificent Mississippi River which the Indians called the Father of Waters. When this wonderful intelligence reached Quebec, Fathers Marquette and Dablon, two energetic priests, set out to explore the mysterious land and plant the banner of the cross in the very heart of the heathen world. Among the Chippewas, they labored lovingly for their God and their king; and when Joliet, an agent of the French government of Canada, arrived there, Marquette gave him efficient aid in his political designs. He summoned a convention of all the surrounding tribes, at the falls of St. Mary's between Lakes Superior and Huron, where he had erected a rude chapel and founded a mission. There, by the side of the cross, the national emblems of France were raised in token of the conquest of the dominion in the name of Louis XIV. of France.

Marquette was not satisfied with these discoveries and conquests. He had heard of a wonderful river called the Mississippi and determined to seek it. He, as an "ambassador of God," and Joliet, an "envoy to discover new countries," went up the Fox River to the watershed between the

Mississippi and the lakes in birch canoes and, crossing the portage, went down the Wisconsin until its waters mingled with those of the great stream. Late in June, 1673, they were upon the bosom of that mighty river which De Soto had discovered, nearer the gulf, a century and a quarter before.* The Indian name was Mississippi, which interpreted means Great Water or Father of Waters.

Father Marquette and his bold companions erected light sails over their canoes and voyaged quite rapidly on the broad bosom of the mighty river, with winds and currents carrying them past the inflowing waters of the Missouri and Ohio and other smaller tributaries, occasionally stopping on the way to hold friendly intercourse with the natives. They came at last to a point below the mouth of the Arkansas River, where they found a tribe of sun-worshippers, who appeared hostile. But for a revered symbol of peace held up by Marquette as they floated down the shores lined with hostile savages, the missionaries would certainly have been destroyed. On the borders of Iowa, a chief had presented the priest with a beautifully wrought and richly ornamented calumet, or pipe of peace, which the good father held aloft. Its well-known form and the rich plumage that adorned it commanded the attention of the fiercest savages,

*See "Estevan," page 363.

and their leader, a venerable man, with nine others, sprang into an immense log canoe and paddled toward the Frenchmen. The ancient chieftain also bore a calumet in his hand, which he gave to Father Marquette as a token of friendship.

Axes of steel were found among the Indians, which was conclusive evidence that they had had intercourse at some time with European nations. After satisfying themselves that the Mississippi River did not flow into either the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean, but emptied into some intermediate bay, gulf, or sea, they turned the prow of their bark northward and before the first frosts of autumn had touched the foliage of the forest-lined banks, they reached Green Bay.

For two years more, Marquette labored among Indians near the present site of Chicago and then crossed the eastern shores of Lake Michigan. A fatal disease had seized upon his lungs, and he was soon conscious that death was near; yet he passed along the shore in his canoe, propelled by two men, until it entered a small stream which for a long time afterward bore his name. They carried him tenderly ashore and laid him on the leaves in deep shadows of the grim old forest. With joy, he informed his companions that he would soon die, and requested them to leave him alone while they unloaded the canoe.