ey sought absolution for their sins; nor
could the priests venture to bear too hard on their unruly penitents,
lest they should break wholly with the church and dispense
thenceforth with her sacraments.

[Footnote 54: From Chapter XVII of "The Old Regime in Canada."
Copyright, 1874, by Francis Parkman. Published by Little, Brown & Co.]

Under such leaders as Du Lhut, the _coureurs de bois_ built forts of
palisades at various points throughout the West and Northwest. They
had a post of this sort at Detroit some time before its permanent
settlement, as well as others on Lake Superior and in the valley of
the Mississippi. They occupied them as long as it suited their
purposes, and then abandoned them to the next comer. Michillimackinac
was, however, their chief resort; and thence they would set out, two
or three together, to roam for hundreds of miles through the endless
meshwork of interlocking lakes and rivers which seams the northern
wilderness.

No wonder that a year or two of bushranging spoiled them for
civilization. Tho not a very valuable member of society, and tho a
thorn in the side of princes and rulers, the _coureur de bois_ had his
uses, at least from an artistic point of view; and his strange figure,
sometimes brutally savage, but oftener marked with the lines of a
daredevil courage, and a reckless, thoughtless gaiety, will always be
joined to the memories of that grand world of woods which the
nineteenth century is fast civilizing out of existence. At least, he
is picturesque, and with his redskin companion serves to animate
forest scenery. Perhaps he could sometimes feel, without knowing that
he felt them, the charms of the savage nature that had adopted him.

Rude as he was, her voice may not always have been meaningless for one
who knew her haunts so well; deep recesses where, veiled in foliage,
some wild shy rivulet steals with timid music through breathless caves
of verdure; gulfs where feathered crags rise like castle walls, where
the noonday sun pierces with keen rays athwart the torrent, and the
mossed arms of fallen pines cast wavering shadows on the illumined
foam; pools of liquid crystal turned emerald in the reflected green of
impending woods; rocks on whose rugged front the gleam of sunlit
waters dances in quivering light; ancient trees hurled headlong by the
storm to dam the raging stream with their forlorn and savage ruin; or
the stern depths of immemorial forests, dim and silent as a cave