Our band of hardy adventurers arose with the sun on the morning

following our first night in bivouac, and by noon of that day, thanks,

perhaps, in some measure to my own work at the oars, and a sail which

we rigged from a corner of the tent, we had passed into and through

the lake which our map had showed us. Now we were below the edge of

the pine woods, and our stream ran more sluggishly, between banks of

cattails or of waving marsh grasses. We put out a trolling line, and

took a bass or so; and once Lafitte, firing chance-medley into a

passing flock of plover, knocked down a half-dozen, so that we bade

fair to have enough for dinner that night. It was all a new world for

us. No one might tell what lay around the next bend of our widening

waterway. We were explorers. A virgin world lay before us. The nature

of the country along the stream kept the settlements back a distance;

so that to us, now, in reality, retracing one of the ancient

fur-trading routes, we might almost have been the first to break these

silences.

Toward nightfall we came into a more rolling and more park-like

region; our prow was now heading to the westward, for the general

course of the great river beyond. I had no notion to visit the city of

Chicago, and our route lay far above that which must be taken by any

large craft bound for the Mississippi route to the Gulf.

Farms now came down to the water's edge in places, villages offered

mill-pond dams--around which, in scowling reticence, we portaged the

Sea Rover, unmindful alike of queries and of jeers. I found time to

post additional letters now. Indeed, I was preparing for a long and

determined enterprise. It was the Sea Rover against the Belle

Helène; and, did the skipper of the latter loll along in flanneled

ease and luxury, not so with the hardy band of cutthroats who manned

our smaller and more mobile craft, men used to hardships, content to

drink spring water instead of sparkling wines, and to eat the product

of their own weapons.

We were I do not know how far from our first encampment, perhaps

thirty miles or more, when toward five o'clock of the evening we

concluded to land at a wooded grassy bank which offered a good camping

place. We made all fast, and in a few moments had our tent up and a

little fire going, Lafitte and L'Olonnois, at this, happy as any two

pirates I ever have seen; and were on the point of spreading our

canvas table cover upon the grass, when we heard a gruff voice hail

us.

"Heh! What're you doin' there?"

We turned, expecting to meet some irate farmer on whose land perhaps

we innocently were trespassing; but the figure which now emerged from

the screening bushes was rougher, bolder, and in some indescribable

way wilder, than that of a farmer. I could not, at first, assign the

fellow a place, for I knew this was an old and well settled country,

and not supposed to be overrun with tramps or campers. He was a stout

man nearly of middle age, dirty and ill clad, his coarse shirt open at

the neck, his legs clad in old overalls, his hat and shoes very much

the worse for wear. His face was covered with a rough beard, and so

brown and so begrimed that, at once, I guessed this must be some

dweller in the open. Yet he seemed no tramp; and even if he were, he

had no right to hail us in this fashion.




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