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From Frontenac, on Lake Ontario, north to Hudson's Bay, was French land. To the westward, along the Ottawa River, and skirting the north shore of Lake Huron to Michillimackinac and Green Bay, were the strong French allies, the Hurons, Ottawas, Nipissings, Kiskagons, Sacs, Foxes, and Mascoutins. Down at the lower end of Lake Michigan, at the Chicagou and St.
The rumor was at Fort Wayne, even before we left, that Mackinac had already fallen; and if that prove true, every post west of the Alleghanies is in danger. I fear that death and flame will sweep the whole frontier; and I frankly acknowledge, Wayland, my only hope in this expedition is that, by hard travel, we may be able to reach Chicagou and return again before the outbreak comes.
War between the nations may very likely arouse the spirit of the savages, yet rumors of Indian outbreak are always on the lips of the settlers. Burns himself was upon his return westward, and did not seem greatly troubled lest he fail to get through. He claimed to live at Chicagou Portage, wherever that may be. I only know it is the extreme frontier."
Tom Burns, an old scout of Wayne's, and a settler in that country, was at Fort Wayne a month since with an urgent message from the commandant at Dearborn. I tell you frankly, it will be touch and go with us." "Chicagou?" I questioned, for the word was one I had heard but once before and was of an odd sound.
I bent over, my eyes seeking the points indicated. I had seen the map before, yet it told me little, for I was unaccustomed to such study, and the few points, and streams named had no real meaning to my mind. The only familiar term was Chicagou Portage, and I pointed to it with my fingers. "Is it there we leave the lake, Monsieur?" "Ay; the rest will be river work. You see this stream?
We shall then proceed to Detroit where your father is whom we consider as a Hog put to fatten in a penn, we shall enclose him in his penn, till he be fat, & then we will throw him into the river We shall draw a reinforcement from the Falls on the Ohio & from thence & the Ilinois send six hundred men to Chicagou
"Ay! old Au Sable called it the Chicagou portage long before the fort named Dearborn was ever established there. 'T is the name the French applied to a small river entering the Great Lake from the west at that point." "Have you journeyed there before?" "Once, in 1803. I held Indian council on the spot, and helped lay out the government reservation.
The Fort had been erected nine years before our arrival, upon the southern bank of a dull and sluggish stream, emptying into the Great Lake from the west, and known to the earlier French explorers as the river Chicagou.
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