tle fellow would be well cared for and happy.

[2] This usage seems to have been quite general. Jonathan Carver, in
1767, tells of a common burying-place of several bands of the Sioux, to
which these roving people carefully brought their dead at a given time,
depositing them with great solemnity. These bodies had previously been
temporarily placed on rude scaffolds on the limbs of trees, awaiting the
general interment.

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Chapter XI

JEAN NICOLLET, LOUIS JOLIET, AND FATHER JACQUES MARQUETTE

THE DISCOVERERS OF THE MISSISSIPPI

Jean Nicollet's Voyage on the Wisconsin.--Louis Joliet and Jacques
Marquette are sent by Count Frontenac to follow the Course of the
Mississippi.--On the Wisconsin.--The "Great Water" reached.--Hospitably
entertained in an Indian Camp.--An Invaluable Gift.--The Mouth of the
Missouri and the Mouth of the Ohio passed.--The Outlet of the Arkansas
reached.--Hardships of the Return Voyage.--Death of Marquette.--Joliet's
Mishap.

A notable _coureur de bois_ (a French-Canadian wood-ranger) was Jean
Nicollet. He had lived for years among the savages and had become
thoroughly Indian in his habits. He was sent by the French Governor,
about 1638, as an ambassador to the Winnebagoes, west of Lake Michigan.
He had heard among his Indian friends of a strange people without hair or
beard who came from beyond the Great Water to trade with the Indians on
the Lakes. Who could these beardless men be but Chinese or Japanese?

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So fully possessed was he by this idea that, in order to make a suitable
appearance before the Orientals whom he expected to meet, he took along
with him a robe of heavy Chinese silk, embroidered with birds and
flowers. When he neared the Winnebago town, he sent a messenger ahead to
announce his coming, and, having put on his gorgeous robe, followed him
on the scene. Never did a circus, making its grand entry into a village
in all the glory of gilded chariots and brass band, inspire deeper awe
than this primitive ambassador, with his flaming robe and a pair of
pistols which he fired continually. His pale face, the first that the
Winnebagoes had ever seen, gave them a sense of something unearthly. The
squaws and the children fled into the woods, shrieking that it was a
manitou (spirit) armed with thunder and lightning. The warriors,
however, stood their ground bravely and entertained him with a feast of
one hundred and twenty beaver.[1]

But if Nicollet