Now they were farther from the
Iroquois, and staved off famine by shooting an occasional bear in the
berry patches. For a thousand miles they had travelled against stream,
carrying their boats across sixty _portages_. Now they glided with the
current westward to Lake Nipissing. On the lake, the Upper Indians
always _cached_ provisions. Fish, otter, and beaver were plentiful;
but again they refrained from using firearms, for Iroquois footprints
had been found on the sand.
From Lake Nipissing they passed to Lake Huron, where the fleet divided.
Radisson and Groseillers went with the Indians, who crossed Lake Huron
for Green Bay on Lake Michigan. The birch canoes could not venture
across the lake in storms; so the boats rounded southward, keeping
along the shore of Georgian Bay. Cedar forests clustered down the
sandy reaches of the lake. Rivers dark as cathedral aisles rolled
their brown tides through the woods to the blue waters of Lake Huron.
At one point Groseillers recognized the site of the ruined Jesuit
missions. The Indians waited the chance of a fair day, and paddled
over to the straits at the entrance to Lake Michigan. At Manitoulin
Island were Huron refugees, among whom were, doubtless, the waiting
families of the Indians with Radisson. All struck south for Green Bay.
So far Radisson and Groseillers had travelled over beaten ground. Now
they were at the gateway of the Great Beyond, where no white man had
yet gone.
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