Indians, who followed him as far as Lake Michigan. Here he embarked with
his two companions. Their destination was Michillimackinac, and their
course lay along the eastern borders of the lake. As, in the freshness of
advancing spring, Pierre and Jacques urged their canoe along that lonely
and savage shore, the priest lay with dimmed sight and prostrated
strength, communing with the Virgin, and the angels. On the nineteenth of
May he felt that his hour was near; and, as they passed the mouth of a
small river, he requested his companions to land. They complied, built a
shed of bark on a rising ground near the bank, and carried thither the
dying Jesuit. With perfect cheerfulness and composure he gave directions
for his burial, asked their forgiveness for the trouble he had caused
them, administered to them the sacrament of penitence, and thanked God
that he was permitted to die in the wilderness, a missionary of the faith
and a member of the Jesuit brotherhood. At night, seeing that they were
fatigued, he told them to take rest,--saying that he would call them when
he felt his time approaching. Two or three hours after, they heard a
feeble voice, and, hastening to his side, found him at the point of death.
He expired calmly, murmuring the names of Jesus and Mary, with his eyes
fixed on the crucifix which one of his followers held before him. They dug
a grave beside the hut, and here they buried him according to the
directions which he had given them; then re-embarking, they made their way
to Michillimackinac, to bear the tidings to the priests at the mission of
St. Ignace. [Footnote: The contemporary _Relation_ tells us that a miracle
took place at the burial of Marquette. One of the two Frenchmen, overcome
with grief and colic, bethought him of applying a little earth from the
grave to the seat of pain. This at once restored him to health and
cheerfulness.]

In the winter of 1676, a party of Kiskakon Ottawas were hunting on Lake
Michigan; and when, in the following spring, they prepared to return home,