he Ottawa with a fairy story
of a marvelous voyage he has made with the Indians through {49} the
forests to the Sea of the North--the sea where Henry Hudson, the
Englishman, had perished. As the romance gains the ear of the public,
the young man waxes eloquent in detail, and tells of the number of
Englishmen living there. Champlain is ordered to follow this
exploration up.

May, 1613, he is back at Montreal, opposite that island named St.
Helen, after the frail girl who became his wife, preparing to ascend
the Ottawa with four white men--among them Vignau. What Vignau's
sensations were, one may guess. The vain youth had not meant his love
of notoriety to carry him so far; and he must have known that every
foot of the way led him nearer detection; but the liar is always a
gambler with chance. Mishap, bad weather, Indian war--might drive
Champlain back. Vignau assumed bold face.

The path followed was that river trail up the Ottawa which was to
become the highway of empire's westward march for two and a half
centuries. Mount Royal is left to the rear as the voyageurs traverse
the Indian trail through the forests along the rapids to that launching
place named after the patron saint of French voyageur--Ste. Anne's.
The river widens into the silver expanse of Two Mountains Lake, rimmed
to the sky line by the vernal hills, with a silence and solitude over
all, as when sunlight first fell on face of man. Here the eagle utters
a lonely scream from the top of some blasted pine; there a covey of
ducks, catching sight of the coming canoes, dive to bottom, only to
reappear a gunshot away. Where the voyageurs land for their nooning,
or camp at nightfall, or pause to gum the splits in their birch canoes,
the forest in the full flush of spring verdure is a fairy woods.
Against the elms and the maples leafing out in airy tracery that
reveals the branches bronze among the budding green, stand the silver
birches, and the somber hemlocks, and the resinous pines. Upbursting
from the mold below is another miniature forest--a forest of ferns
putting out the hairy fronds that in another month will be above the
height of a man. Overhead, like a flame of fire, flashes the scarlet
tanager with his querulous call; or the oriole flits from branch to
branch, {50} fluting his springtime notes; or the yellow warbler
balances on topmost spray to sing his crisp love song on the long
journey north to nest on Hudson Bay. And over all and in