i6o A Siiuinier on the Great Lakes.
rian " — (we called Hugh Warren by iiig Duluth the terminus of our journey, that title from his abiUty to always Our return would be leisurely, stopping give information on any mooted here and there, at out-of-the-way places, point) . He was a walking encyclopse- camping-out whenever the fancy seized dia of historical lore. " Don't know ! us and the opportunity offered, to hunt, Yes, you do. It is just what we want, to fish, to rest, being for the time knight- It will be a delightful voyage, with errants of pleasure, or, as the Historian scenes of beauty at every sunset and dubbed us, peripatetic philosophers, in every sunrise. The Sault de Ste. Marie search, not of the touchstone to make with its fairy isles, the waters of Lake gold, but the touchstone to make Huron so darkly, deeply, beautifully health. Our trip was to occupy two green, and the storied waves of Superior months.
with their memories of the martyr It was well toward the latter part of
missionaries, of old French broils and June in i88i^ on one of the brightest
the musical flow of Hiawatha. The of summer mornings, that our steamer,
very thought is enough to make one belonging to the regular daily line to
enthusiastic. How came you to think Toronto, steamed slowly out from the
of it, Vincent?" harbor of Oswego. So we were at last
" I never think : I scorn the imputa- on the "beautiful water," for that is*
tion," repled Vincent, with a look of as- the meaning of Ontario in the Indian
sumed disdain. " It was a inspiration." tongue. Here, two hundred years
" And you have inspired us to a before us, the war-canoes of De Cham- glorious undertaking. The Crusades plain and his Huron allies had spurned were nothing to it. Say, Montague," the foaming tide. Here, a hundred to me, "you are agreed.?" years later the batteaux of that great
"Yes, I am agreed," I assented, soldier, Montcalm, had swept round "We will spend our summer on the the bluff to win the fortress on its height, Great Lakes. It will be novel, it will then in English hands. Historic mem- be refreshing, it will be classical." ories haunted it. The very waves
So it was concluded. A week from sparkling in the morning sunshine
that time found us at Oswego. Our whispered of romantic tales,
proposed route was an elaborate one. Seated at the stern of the boat we
It was to start at Oswego, take a bee- looked back upon the fading city,
line across Lake Ontario to Toronto, Hugh Warren was smoking, and his
hence up the lake and through the slow-moving blue eyes were fixed
Welland Canal into Lake Erie, along dreamily upon the shore. He did not
the shores of that historical inland seem to be gazing at anything, and yet
sea, touching at Erie, Cleveland, San- we knew he saw more than any of us.
dusky, and Toledo, up Detroit River, "A centime for your thoughts,
through the Lake and River of St. Hugh ! " cried Vincent, rising and
Clair, then gliding over the waters of stretching his limbs.
Lake Huron, dash down along the " I was thinking," said the Historian,
shores of Lake Michigan to Chicago, " of that Frenchman, Montcalm, who
and back past Milwaukee, through the one summer day came down on the
Straits of Mackinaw and the ship-canal English at Oswego unawares with his
into the placid waves of Superior, mak- gunboats and Indians and gendarmes.
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