Well, wherever they went, Joliet and Father Marquette showed the calumet of the great Indian chief, and then the other Indians were friendly too. And these two Frenchmen were so good and brave that the Indians liked them for their own sakes; so down the river they sailed, past big forests and beautiful, rolling prairies, until one day they saw a wide, yellow river that flowed into the Mississippi. This was the Missouri, a great, yellow, roaring river, and if they had time, I think the two Frenchmen would have sailed up it; but they could not stop. So day after day they sailed on down, down, down the Mississippi. I think that they must have had a good time of it, seeing a new country all the while; but they did not go the whole way. When they had gone many hundreds of miles, they were told stories of some very cruel Indians who lived in the south. The friendly Indians said to them, "If you fall into the hands of these bad Indians, they will surely tie you to a pole and burn you alive; and if you escape, perhaps the Spaniards will catch you, and they are as wicked as the others."

So Joliet and Father Marquette talked it over for a long time, and at last they thought it would be wiser to go back. Slowly they sailed up the Mississippi River, and then across the country to the Great Lakes, and back the same way they had come. On the way home they saw graceful, white swans, with long, beautiful necks, swimming on the little silver lakes, and in the dark, green forests were cattle, and goats, and beautiful brown deer, with wonderful spreading horns. At last they reached Quebec, and all the people in the town wanted to hear of the great adventures and lucky escapes of Joliet and Father Marquette.

Now, there was a brave man named La Salle, who heard these stories from the mouth of Joliet. This La Salle was a very great man in France. His family were nobles and were very rich, and young La Salle, whose first name was Robert, had been well brought up, and had been taught many things. He was so good that he even became a priest, and everybody said that Robert La Salle was a very good and a very wise man.

But Robert La Salle wanted to go to America, not only to find new lands, but also to find what so many others had tried to find, a new way to the Pacific Ocean. So he gave up being a priest and went to the great, new country of America.

La Salle was not only a wise man, but one who thought a great deal, and now he thought of a new plan. This plan was to build little French forts, very little but very strong, all the way along the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River; and at the mouth of the Mississippi he planned a great, great fort. He wanted to put French soldiers in these forts, so that the whole river and all the country around would belong to France. When this was done, Frenchmen could go everywhere to get furs, and soon little cities could be built, and there would be a great, strong, New France in America. So the dream of Champlain would come true.

Now, the first thing La Salle had to do was to sail down the great Mississippi and find the best places for his little forts and trading posts; and this was not an easy thing to do. In those days it was a long and hard journey from Quebec to the mouth of the Great River, and La Salle tried many times before he succeeded. On the first trip his ship was wrecked in a great storm and nearly everything was lost. Then he had no food, and had to sail back miles and miles and miles to get bread and meat. Later, his money gave out, and he had to wait until he had sold enough furs to buy a new ship. And then, when his men tried to sail on the lakes, the wind blew against them, and many times they had to sleep on the icy ground, with nothing but the sky over them. Often and often they had no food at all but a few handfuls of corn.

But the worst trouble that La Salle had was with his men. They did not want to do much work, and they were always complaining because the journey was so hard and because they had nothing to eat. Now, they knew very well before they started that it would not be easy, and so I, for one, think that they ought not to have complained; but so it is with people. Some, like La Salle's men, will grumble and grumble over every little thing, while others will bear all sorts of hardship and never say a word.

Now, there were with La Salle two men who never complained. One was his faithful French friend, Tonti, and another faithful friend was an Indian. These two men, one a Frenchman and one an Indian, loved La Salle and did whatever he asked. The Indian knew the forest. He could find his way through the great, thick trees even in the dark; so La Salle took him as his guide. When everybody else was tired and cross, this good Indian was as brave and as patient as ever. This was because he loved La Salle, and because La Salle was always kind to all Indians.

Well, all the time the troubles of La Salle grew worse and worse. Sometimes the little streams were filled with ice, so that the canoes had to be moved on sledges, and sometimes these brave men had to wade for miles in water up to their waists. Of course, the brambles and thorns tore their clothing to rags, and when it grew cold, their clothes froze as hard as ice. Then they had to stop and build a fire before they could go any further.

I am sure these were times when even the brave heart of La Salle almost broke, but not once did he give up. Again and again he tried, day after day, till at last, after years of disappointment, La Salle reached the mouth of the Mississippi River. His patience and perseverance were finally rewarded. It was in February, over two hundred years ago, that the Father of Waters and all the country nearby was given by La Salle to the King of France.

You can imagine the joy of La Salle when at last he reached the end of his long journey. He put up a cross on the banks of the river. Then he asked all his men to kneel down and pray. Then it was that he named the new country Louisiana, in honor of King Louis, and, in a loud voice, called out that from that time on all the land should belong to France.

And for many years the great country of the Mississippi did  belong to France. But later, much later, when the grandchildren of the men who had been with La Salle were all dead, a new country grew up in America—our country, the United States. And to us the French sold all this great country of the Mississippi. Yet the name of Louisiana is still the name of one of our States, and even to-day all Americans think of La Salle as a great and good man who did well for his country.

For all his good deeds La Salle was not rewarded as he should have been. Two years after he had found the mouth of the Mississippi River, he came back again with four ships and two hundred and eighty men. This time he wanted to build the city and fort that he had planned so many years before; but the captain of these vessels was a very stupid and a very jealous man. He took La Salle to the wrong place instead of to the mouth of the Mississippi, and when La Salle wanted him to sail again and try once more to find the mouth of the river, this evil man would not do so; so La Salle started by land. Now he had no map, and it was much further than he thought. Then, too, there were many hardships, and his men grumbled and grumbled, and would not do as he said. And at last two of the men, who were very wicked, hid behind trees, and when La Salle was walking to the camp, they shot him dead.

And that was the end of Robert La Salle, the man who found the mouth of the Mississippi, and who was one of the true, good and great friends of the Indians.