It brought them at last to the portage;
where, after carrying their canoes a mile and a half over the prairie
and through the marsh, they launched them on the Wisconsin, bade
farewell to the waters that flowed to the St. Lawrence, and committed
themselves to the current that was to bear them they knew not
whither,--perhaps to the Gulf of Mexico, perhaps to the South Sea or
the Gulf of California. They glided calmly down the tranquil stream, by
islands choked with trees and matted with entangling grape-vines; by
forests, groves, and prairies,--the parks and pleasure-grounds of a
prodigal nature; by thickets and marshes and broad bare sand-bars; under
the shadowing trees, between whose tops looked down from afar the bold
brow of some woody bluff. At night, the bivouac,--the canoes inverted on
the bank, the flickering fire, the meal of bison-flesh or venison, the
evening pipes and slumber beneath the stars; and when in the morning
they embarked again, the mist hung on the river like a bridal veil;
then melted before the sun, till the glassy water and the languid woods
basked breathless in the sultry glare.
On the 17th of June, they saw on their right the broad meadows, bounded
in the distance by rugged hills, where now stand the town and fort of
Prairie du Chien.
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