west, and came at last to the Lake of the Winds. They travelled across
one corner of it, to a point where they would strike an unknown path to
Hudson's Bay.

Iberville had never before seen this lake, and, with all his knowledge of
great proportions, he was not prepared for its splendid vastness. They
came upon it in the evening, and camped beside it. They watched the sun
spread out his banners, presently veil his head in them, and sink below
the world. And between them and that sunset was a vast rock stretching
out from a ponderous shore--a colossal stone lion, resting Sphinxlike,
keeping its faith with the ages. Alone, the warder of the West, stormy,
menacing, even the vernal sun could give it little cheerfulness. But to
Iberville and his followers it brought no gloom at night, nor yet in the
morning when all was changed, and a soft silver mist hung over the "great
water," like dissolving dew, through which the sunlight came with a
strange, solemn delicacy. Upon the shore were bustle, cheerfulness, and
song, until every canoe was launched, and then the band of warriors got
in, and presently were away in the haze.

The long bark canoes, with lofty prows, stained with powerful dyes, slid
along this path swiftly, the paddles noiselessly cleaving the water with
the precision of a pendulum. One followed the other with a space
between, so that Iberville, in the first, looking back, could see a
diminishing procession, the last seeming large and weird--almost a
shadow--as it were a part of the weird atmosphere. On either side was
that soft plumbless diffusion, and ahead the secret of untravelled wilds
and the fortunes of war.

As if by common instinct, all gossip ceased soon after they left
the shore, and, cheerful as was the French Canadian, he was--and is--