ighted and lost no time in employing such persons as
he needed--soldiers, canoe-men, and hunters. Birch-bark canoes were
procured and laden with provisions, equipment, and packages of goods to
trade with the Indians; and in the early summer of 1731 all was ready
for the great western journey. With La Verendrye were to go three of
his sons, Jean-Baptiste, Pierre, and Francois, and his nephew La
Jemeraye. A Jesuit missionary, Father Messager, would join the party
at Fort Michilimackinac, and the Indian Ochagach was to act as guide.

{20}

CHAPTER II

FIRST ATTEMPT AT EXPLORATION

As La Verendrye led his men from the gates of Montreal to the river
where waited his little fleet of birch-bark canoes, his departure was
watched with varied and conflicting emotions. In the crowd that
surrounded him were friends and enemies; some who openly applauded his
design, others who less openly scoffed at it; priests exhorting him to
devote all his energies to furthering the missionary aims of their
Church among the wild tribes of the West; jealous traders commenting
among themselves upon the injustice involved in granting a monopoly of
the western fur trade to this scheming adventurer; partners in the
enterprise anxiously watching the loading of the precious merchandise
they had advanced to him, and wondering whether their cast of the dice
would bring fortune or failure; busybodies bombarding him with advice;
and a crowd of idle onlookers, divided in their minds {21} as to
whether La Verendrye would return triumphantly from the Western Sea
laden with the spoils of Cathay and Cipango, or would fall a victim to
the half-human monsters that were reputed to inhabit the wilderness of
the West.

But now everything was ready. La Verendrye gave the word of command,
and the canoes leaped forward on their long voyage. A new search for
the Western Sea had begun. No man knew how it would end. The perils
and hardships encountered by the discoverers of America in crossing the
Atlantic were much less terrible than those with which La Verendrye and
his men must battle in exploring the boundless plains of the unknown
West. The voyage across the sea would occupy but a few weeks; this
journey by inland waterways and across the illimitable spaces of the
western prairies would take many months and even years. There was a
daily menace from savage foes lurking on the path of the adventurers.
Hardy and dauntless must they be who should return sa