and his followers wandered, for months, up and down the coast vainly searching for the mouth of the river. The men developed discontent and mutiny which finally resulted in the assassination of the indomitable explorer.

The ever faithful Tonti, after following the eventful and turbulent career of his beloved leader to the end, ever lending material aid to his many achievements, and after making a long and faithful search for the body of his friend, became a fur trader at Fort St. Louis, which had been established by La Salle.

Hennepin, in 1680, was taken prisoner by the Sioux and carried far up the Mississippi, where he saw, and gave the first written description of, the Falls of St. Anthony. With his two companions, he was rescued by Dulhut, whom we shall meet as an important character in the early history of the lake country.

In spite of his well established qualifications for membership in the Ananias club, Hennepin rendered unmistakable service to posterity. His writings are most interesting and, with the notes of Doctor Thwaites, by which the genuine voyages and experiences can be distinguished from the spurious, afford highly instructive reading.

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In his description of the Great Lakes, Hennepin in spirit of prophecy writes: "It were easy to build on the sides of these great Lakes, an infinite Number of considerable Towns, which might have Communication one with another by Navigation for Five Hundred Leagues together, and by an inconceivable Commerce which would establish itself among 'em." Thus did the jolly friar, two hundred and forty years ago, seem to have a wonderfully accurate vision of the great modern cities, Toronto, Buffalo, Cleveland, Toledo, Detroit, Milwaukee, Hennepin's A New Discovery, Thwaites, vol. i, p. 64.

I

Chicago, Duluth, and scores of lesser, although important cities, which, situated on the shores of these Great Lakes, have made the lake region the industrial center of the richest country on the globe.

CHAPTER XVI

The Coureur de Bois, du l'Hut or Dulhut, Prince of Coureurs de Bois, Com manding at Mackinac, Learns of Murder of Two Frenchmen at Keweenaw Dispatches Péré to Arrest the Murderers-Dulhut Goes to the Sault to Arrest Folle Avoine, an Accomplice Solicitude for Safety of Péré-Péré Appears at Sault with Achiganaga and SonsTrial and Conviction of the Murderers-Execution-First Judicial Trial in Upper Great Lakes Country-Dulhut and Tonti Accompany Baron La Hontan to the Sault-La Hontan's Description of the Sault-Dulhut's Subsequent Career and Death.

WEARING a garb most quaint and picturesque; inured to toil, hardship and danger; expert in managing a canoe or finding his way in a primeval forest; at the same time fur-trader, trapper, explorer and Indian fighter, the coureur de bois was a most important factor in making the Great Lakes country known to Europeans, in opening and keeping open the avenues of trade with the Western Indians, and rendering it possible for civilization eventually to follow his pioneer footsteps.

The coureur de bois represented a type of men absolutely necessary for the work preliminary to conquering the wilderness. Only such men could brave the dangers, endure the hardships and adapt themselves to living and associating with the Indians; all of which was necessary to mere existence to say nothing of further achievements. And yet, owing to the peculiar system of government obtaining in New France during its early history, the coureur de bois was often an outlaw and subject to the severest penalties whenever he came in reach of the authorities.

He was an outlaw because he could not see the justice in the government, or the monopolistic trading companies, having a share in the furs which he, by toil and danger, secured a thousand miles beyond the sphere of their influence or protection.

He was an outlaw because he intercepted the Indians on their way to the French markets at Montreal, Three Rivers and Quebec, and sent the peltries to their rivals, the English and Dutch on the Atlantic coast, where he received better prices and escaped confiscation of a part of his goods.

The young men who indulged in the illicit trade were prevented from going back to their farms or taking any part in the work of the colony.

To protect themselves they had to keep beyond the clutches of the law, which meant that they remained constantly with the Indians; their lives were thus assimilated to those of the savages. Once they had tasted the sweets of freedom they seldom wished to return to the limited, plodding life of the habitant.'

In 1703, La Hontan wrote that Canada subsisted only on the trade in skins and furs. The profits and fascination of the pursuit robbed Canada of its young men while it supplied it with money. An official reported in 1680, that eight hundred men, out of a population of ten thousand, had vanished from sight into the wilderness, and that there was not a family of any condition or quality that had not children, .brothers, uncles or nephews among the traders.2

A modern writer thus graphically describes this most interesting class of pioneers3:

A lawless gang, half trader, half explorer, wholly bent on divertissement, and not discouraged by misery or peril. They

1 Canada and its Provinces, vol. ii, p. 471.

The Story of the Great Lakes, Channing and Lansing, p. 331.

3 From Cartier to Frontenac, Winsor, p. 199.

lived in a certain fashion, to which the missionaries, themselves, were not averse, as Lamercier shows when he commends the priests of his order as being savages among savages. Charlevoix tells us that while the Indian did not become French, the Frenchman became a savage. Talon speaks of these vagabonds as being as banditti, gathering furs as they could and bringing them to Albany or Montreal to sell, just as it proved the easiest.

If the Intendant could have controlled them, he would have made them marry, give up trade and the wilderness and settle down to work. It was his attempts to do this that drove them into the woods and threw them into the English trade. Their alienation helped the English and embarrassed the French. It was left to Frontenac later to regulate what could not be suppressed.

This gives the extreme views of an officer of the government thwarted in his efforts to collect taxes from these independent traders, and is far from being fair to them as a class. The term, coureur de bois, came to be applied to all, save the agents of the fur companies, who ventured into the forest for the purpose of securing furs. Not all of them sought to evade the law; many of them rendered signal service in the way of exploration and developing the Indian trade; and in times of danger, when Indian forays threatened the very existence of the settlements, it was the coureurs de bois who rallied to their rescue.

H His life was one of constant danger and exposure. Cut off from all companionship with his countrymen, he wandered through the trackless wilderness from Hudson's Bay to La Belle Rivière, and the forests of the west were as familiar to him as the streets of Montreal. He lived with the Indians, talked their language, dressed like them, hunted with them and shared all the fortunes of the chase and the foray. He was bound to them by the ties of marriage and kinship, and frequently lost his identity and the light veneer of civilization