last, tired
and worn, and almost in despair of ever seeing La Belle Riviere, we
entered it at noon of the 29th." The part of the Ohio, or "La Belle
Riviere," which they had thus happily reached, is now called the
Alleghany. The Great West lay outspread before them, a realm of wild and
waste fertility.

French America had two heads,--one among the snows of Canada, and one
among the canebrakes of Louisiana; one communicating with the world
through the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and the other through the Gulf of
Mexico. These vital points were feebly connected by a chain of military
posts,--slender, and often interrupted,--circling through the wilderness
nearly three thousand miles. Midway between Canada and Louisiana lay the
valley of the Ohio. If the English should seize it, they would sever the
chain of posts, and cut French America asunder. If the French held it,
and entrenched themselves well along its eastern limits, they would shut
their rivals between the Alleghanies and the sea, control all the tribes
of the West, and turn them, in case of war, against the English
borders,--a frightful and insupportable scourge.

The Indian population of the Ohio and its northern tributaries was
relatively considerable. The upper or eastern half of the valley was
occupied by mingled hordes of Delawares, Shawanoes, Wyandots, and
Iroquois, or Indians of the Five Nations, who had migrated thither from
their ancestral abodes within the present limits of the State of New
York, and who were called Mingoes by the English traders. Along with
them were a few wandering Abenakis, Nipissings, and Ottawas. Farther
west, on the waters of the Miami, the Wabash, and other neighboring
streams, was the seat of a confederacy formed of the various bands of
the Miamis and their kindred or affiliated tribes. Still farther west,
towards the Mississippi, were the remnants of the Illinois.

France had done but little to make good her claims to this grand domain.
East of the Miami she had no military post whatever. Westward, on the
Maumee, there was a small wooden fort, another on the St. Joseph, and
two on the Wabash. On the meadows of the Mississippi, in the Illinois
country, stood Fort Chartres,--a much stronger work, and one of the
chief links of the chain that connected Quebec with New Orleans. Its
four stone bastions were impregnable to musketry; and, here in the
depths of the wilderness, there was no fear that cannon would be brought
against it. It wa