tection of the Indians themselves. And yet these very men
and women, had La Salle been captured in battle, would have shouted and
leaped for joy in seeing him writhing and shrieking beneath fiend-like
tortures. Such is fallen man. He is the ruin of a once noble fabric.
But many fragments of his former grandeur still remain. There is no
philosophy, save the religion of the Bible, which can explain these
discordances.

On the 20th of January, 1679, La Salle, with his long train of heavily
laden men in single file, reached his large log-cabin and ship-yard in
the midst of a dense forest on the shore of Lake Erie. They brought
upon their backs provisions, merchandise, ammunition, and materials for
rigging the vessel. The dock-yard--it could hardly be called a
fort--was about six miles above Niagara Falls, on the western side of
the river, at the outlet of a little stream called Chippewa Creek.

The men there had been employed in erecting their hut, cutting ship
timber, and preparing the ground for building their vessel. There were
many Indians continually visiting them. La Salle, the very week of his
arrival, laid the keel of his vessel, and with his own hand drove the
first bolt. He had no thought of encroaching upon the lands of the
Indians, or of erecting any forts in antagonism to them. The object of
his expedition was solely to make discoveries in the name of France, to
establish trading stations for the purchase of valuable furs of the
Indians, and to erect throughout the region he traversed military
posts, over which the banners of France might float, which would prove
that by the right of discovery, the region belonged to France and not
to England. The foe to be guarded against was the British Government,
not the Indian tribes.

With characteristic sagacity, La Salle summoned a council of the chiefs
of all the neighboring tribes, and addressed them in substance as
follows:

"I come to you as a friend and a brother. I wish to buy your furs. I
will pay you for them in guns and powder, knives, hatchets, kettles,
beads, and such other articles as you want. Thus you can do me good,
and I can do you good. We can be brothers. I am building a vessel, that
I may visit other tribes, purchase their furs, and carry to them our
goods. Let us smoke the pipe of friendship, and shake hands. The Great
Spirit will be pleased to see us, His children, love one another and
help each other. I wish to establish a trading-post here, wh