necessary supplies; with dying ears he listened to the sound of the busy axes and hammers, and with dying voice he charged upon his men the accomplishment of what would turn all the suffering and loss of their expedition into brilliant success and ensure his fame and theirs to all time.
But the Spaniards, sinking the body of their commander beneath the turbid waters of the Mississippi, sank there too his plans and ambitions, and, turning their backs upon the river, recked not that Spain should gain or lose it.
Over the burial spot of the Spanish explorer floated, a century and a half later, the boats of La Salle, the Canadian explorer. As he paddled his way down the gigantic stream, the like of which he had never dreamed existed in the world, he was, in thought, making that map of the country described above. And by the time his boats came into view of the Gulf, his scheme for affixing the great river and valley to France lay as clear in his mind as the blue expanse before his eyes. He would first build strongholds, settle colonies, and mass friendly Indians at the mouth of each tributary. French traders, coureurs de bois, and missionaries, with a free and secure route
