him the leader of the coureurs de
bois. There can be no doubt that he had reached this eminence among
the French of the forest. He was a gentleman by birth and a soldier by
early training. In many ways he resembled La Salle, for both stood
high above the common coureurs de {78} bois in station, as in talent.
Du Lhut has to his credit no single exploit which equals La Salle's
descent of the Mississippi, but in native sagacity he was the superior.
With a temperament less intense and experiences less tragic, he will
never hold the place which La Salle securely occupies in the annals of
adventure. But few Frenchmen equalled him in knowledge of the
wilderness, and none displayed greater force of character in dealing
with the Indians.

What the mouth of the Mississippi was to La Salle the country of the
Sioux became to Du Lhut--a goal to be reached at all hazards. Not only
did he reach it, but the story of how he rescued Father Hennepin from
the Sioux (1680) is among the liveliest tales to be found in the
literature of the wilderness. The only regrettable circumstance is
that the story should have been told by Hennepin instead of by Du
Lhut--or rather, that we should not have also Du Lhut's detailed
version instead of the brief account which he has left. Above all, Du
Lhut made himself the guardian of French interests at Michilimackinac,
the chief French post of the Far West--the rendezvous of more tribes
than came together at any other point. The finest tale of his courage
{79} and good judgment belongs to the period of La Barre's
government--when, in 1684, at the head of forty-two French, he executed
sentence of death on an Indian convicted of murder. Four hundred
savages, who had assembled in mutinous mood, witnessed this act of
summary justice. But they respected Du Lhut for the manner in which he
had conducted the trial, and admired the firmness with which he
executed a fair sentence.

Du Lhut's exploits and character make him the outstanding figure of the
war which Duchesneau waged against the coureurs de bois. The intendant
certainly had the letter of the law on his side in seeking to clear the
woods of those rovers who at the risk of their own lives and without
expense to the government were gaining for France an unequalled
knowledge of the interior. Not only had the king decreed that no one
should be permitted to enter the forest without express permission, but
an edict of 1676 denied even the governor