First French Foot-Prints Beyond the Lakes. 89' 



venison, fish and wild-fowl, they slept beside plashing waters till 

 roused by morning birds. At every turn in the rivers, new scen- 

 ery opened upon them. Overhanging groves, oak openings, 

 prairies, rapids, Baraboo bluffs, outcrops of rock, ravines, mouths 

 of branches, each was a pleasant surprise. That merry month of 

 May, 1830, recalled to the voyager, in the long lapse from youth 

 to age, no other like itself. How many would give half their 

 lives for such a wild-wood memory ! 



In the light of such an experience, it is easy to see how Nicol- 

 let was drawn on and on into the unknown west. JSTo wonder 

 that, only ten years after Quebec was occupied, we find him, in 

 1618, wintering half-way from that new-born post to Lake Huron, 

 in the Isle of Allumette. He had no longing for the security of 

 dwellers beneath the guns of Quebec. Amid his perils he de- 

 spised them, as Caudle-lectured husbands despise those couples 

 who vegetate together for years without a cross word, but in such 

 a stupid style that they never know they are born. 



Nicollet was a representative of a large element among French 

 Canadians. In 1609, at one of Champlain's first interviews with 

 Indians from the remote interior, a young man of his company 

 had boldly volunteered to join them on their homeward journey,, 

 and to winter among them. He remembered Pierre Gamble, a 

 page of Laudonniere in Florida, who being allowed to go freely 

 among the Indians, had become prime favorite with the chief of 

 the island of Edelano, married his daughter, and in his absence 

 reigned in his stead. Champlain's retainer was among the first of 

 a class — up to everything, down to everything — who " followed 

 the Indians in their roamings, grew familiar with their language, 

 allied themselves with their women, became oracles in the camp 

 and leaders on the war-path." 



Their fun was as fast and furious as Tam O'Shanter's : 



" Kings may be great, but they were glorious, 

 O'er all the ills of life victorious." 



For them civilization was no longer either cold or hot — but so- 

 lukewarm that they spewed it out of their mouths. Something 

 of their feeling burned in their best historian, Francis Parkman,. 



