Hatchets, and beads, and bits of cloth were the money they used to pay
the Indians for what they wanted.

The friendly Indians in Wis-con-sin tried to per-suade them not to go.
They told them that the Indians on the great river would kill them.

The friendly Indians also told them that there was a demon in one part
of the river. They said that this demon roared so loud that he could
be heard a long way off. They said that the demon would draw the
trav-el-ers down into the water. Then they told about great monsters
that ate up men and their canoes.

But Mar-quette and the men with him thought they would risk the
journey. They would not turn back for fear of the demon or
the monsters.

The two little canoes went down the Wis-con-sin River. After some days
they came to the Mis-sis-sip-pi. More than a hundred years before, the
Spaniards had seen the lower part of this river. But no white man had
ever seen this part of the great river. Mar-quette did not know that
any white man had ever seen any part of the Mis-sis-sip-pi.

The two little canoes now turned their bows down the river. Some-times
they saw great herds of buf-fa-loes. Some of these came to the bank of
the river to look at the men in the canoes. They had long, shaggy
manes, which hung down over their eyes.

For two weeks the trav-el-ers paddled down the river. In all this time
they did not see any Indians. After they had gone hundreds of miles in
this way, they came to a place where they saw tracks in the mud. It