f France's king were to be erected, and France's posts were to hold
all the ancient trails. Even at the mouth of the Great River,
forestalling these sullen English and these sluggish English colonists,
far to the south in the somber forests and miasmatic marshes, there was
to be established one more ruling point for the arms of Louis the Grand.
It was a great game this, for which the continent of America was in
preparation. It was a mighty thing, this gathering of the Great Peace,
this time when colonists and their king were seeing the first breaking
of the wave on the shore of an empire alluring, wonderful, unparalleled.

Into this wild rabble of savages and citizens, of priest and soldier and
_coureur_, Law's friends, Pierre Noir and Jean Breboeuf, swiftly
disappeared, naturally, fitly and unavoidably. "The West is calling to
us, Monsieur," said Pierre Noir one morning, as he stood looking out
across the river. "I hear once more the spirits of the Messasebe.
Monsieur, will you come?"

Law shook his head. Yet two days later, as he stood at that very point,
there came to him the silent feet of two _coureurs_ instead of one. Once
more he heard in his ear the question: "Monsieur L'as, will you come?"

At this voice he started. In an instant his arms were about the neck of
Du Mesne, and tears were falling from the eyes of both in the welcome of
that brotherhood which is admitted only by those who have known together
arms and danger and hardship, the touch of the hard ground and the sight
of the wide blue sky.

"Du Mesne, my friend!"

"Monsieur L'as!"

"It is as though you came from the depths of the sea, Du Mesne!" said
Law.

"And as though you yourself arose from the grave, Monsieur!"

"How did you know--?"

"Why, easily. You do not yet understand the ways of the wilderness,
where news travels as fast as in the cities. You were hardly below the
foot of Michiganon before runners from the Illini had spread the news
along the Chicaqua, where I was then in camp. For the rest, the runners
brought also news of the Big Peace. I reasoned that the Iroquois would
not dare to destroy their captives, that in time the agents of the
Government would receive the captives of the Iroquois--that these
captives would naturally come to the settlements on the St. Lawrence,
since it was the French against whom the Iroquois had been at war; that
having come to Montreal, you would naturally remain here for a time. The
rest was easy. I