La Salle and the discovery of the great West - North Central ...

250 THE ADVENTURES OF HENNEPIN". [1680.Du Gay, it is tolerably clear that the former was thereal leader of the party, though Hennepin, after hiscustom, thrusts himself into the foremost place.Both were somewhat above the station of ordinaryhired hands ;and Du Gay had an uncle who was anecclesiastic of good credit at Amiens, his nativeplace.In the forests that overhung the river the budswere feebly swelling with advancing spring.Therewas game enough. They killed buffalo, deer,beavers, wild turkeys, and now and then a bearswimming in the river. With these, and the fishwhich they caught in abundance, they fared sumptuously,though it was the season of Lent. They wereexemplary, however, at their devotions. Hennepinsaid prayers at morning and night, and the angelusat noon, adding a petition to Saint Anthony of Paduathat he would save them from the peril that besettheir way. In truth, there was a lion in the path.The ferocious character of the Sioux, or Dacotah,who occupied the region of the Upper Mississippi,was already known to the French; and Hennepin,with excellent reason, prayed that it might be hisfortune to meet them, not by night, but by day.On the eleventh or twelfth of April, they stoppedin the afternoon to repair their canoe ;and Hennepinbusied himself in daubing it with pitch, while theothers cooked a turkey. Suddenly, a fleet of Siouxcanoes swept into sight, bearing a war-party of ahundred and twenty naked savages, who on seeing