The canoes were skirting the western bank, driven by the current, when one voyageur called to another:
"Halt!" the forward paddler answered. "Look to thy scalp, lad, for here is the Indian!"
There was no feathered head in ambush, but they saw moccasin prints in the low moist margin and a path leading up to the prairie.
Marquette and Jolliet held the boats together while they consulted.
"Do you think it wise to pass by without searching what this may mean, Father?"
"No, I do not. We might thus leave enemies behind our backs to cut off our return. Some Indian village is near. It would be my counsel to approach and offer friendship."
"Shall we take the men?" debated Jolliet. "Two of them at least should stay to guard the canoes."
"Let them all stay to guard the canoes. If we go unarmed and unattended, we shall not raise suspicion in the savages' minds."
"But we may raise suspicion in our own minds."
"The barbarous people on this unexplored river have us at their mercy," he declared, "We can at best do little to defend ourselves."
Taking some of the goods which they had brought along for presents, Jolliet bade the men wait their return and climbed the bank with the missionary. The path led through prairie grass, gay at that season with flowers. The delicate buttercup-like sensitive plant shrank from their feet in wet places. Neither Frenchman had yet seen the deadly rattlesnake of these southern countries, singing as a great fly might sing in a web, dart out of its spotted spiral to fasten a death bite upon a victim. They walked in silence, dreading only the human beings they were going to meet. When they had gone about two leagues, the path drew near the wooded bank of a little stream draining into the Mississippi which they had scarcely noticed from the canoes. There they saw an Indian village, and farther off, up a hill, more groups of wigwams. They heard the voices of children, and nobody suspected their approach.
Jolliet and Marquette halted. Not knowing how else to announce their presence, they shouted together as loud as they could shout. The savages ran out of their wigwams and darted about in confusion until they saw the two motionless white men. The long black cassock of Marquette had instant effect upon them. For their trinkets and a few garments on their bodies showed that they had trafficked with Europeans.