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Updated: June 13, 2025
As they filed through the Frenchman's door they entered not the store at all but what was Père Marquette's idea of a drawing room. The long counters and shelves were there, but the barrels of pickled meat, the piles of soap and tinned meats, the bags of flour, the stacks of men's clothing, all this had been whisked away and out of sight as though by magic.
Always there were eager hands to detain him, eager tongues to ask if Drennen had let anything drop. Always the same answer, a shake of the head; he had learned nothing. The day after the affair at Père Marquette's had seen MacLeod's Settlement empty of men.
Sefton, the man with the coppery Vandyke beard, thin-jawed and with restless eyes, had given him certain rude help at Marquette's and had been among the first the following day to offer aid. Drennen dismissed him briefly, offering to pay for what he had already done but saying he had no further need of clumsy fingers fooling with his hurt.
The shore was desolate, and the lake was stormy. They were more than a month in coasting its western border, when at length they reached the river Chicago, entered it, and ascended about two leagues. Marquette's disease had lately returned, and hemorrhage now ensued. He told his two companions that this journey would be his last. In the condition in which he was, it was impossible to go farther.
There floated out to him loud voices from Père Marquette's store; they were drinking there. He wondered idly what lay back of this human influx. He was too sick to care greatly. He had left word with Joe to send the boy with lunch at noon. The boy came in shortly after one o'clock, explaining that there had been such a rush at the counter that Joe couldn't let him go sooner.
They were thoughtful-eyed, thoughtful-souled, their lips silent, their hearts eloquent, as they rode through the quiet street, passing Père Marquette's, Joe's, finally coming abreast of Drennen's old dugout. Drennen drew rein as Ygerne stopped her horse. Her eyes went to the rude cabin, its door open now as it used to be so often even when Drennen had lived there.
"M'sieu," Père Marquette was saying the worn phrase, "you do me an' Mamma Jeanne the honour! You are welcome, m'sieu!" With the usual phrase came the customary offering. Drennen caught the glass from Marquette's hand and drank swiftly. The glass he set on the counter, putting down a coin with it. "There's your money, old man," he said shortly. "Give me my change."
Carrying his burden with a strength equal to that of a young Kootanie George, Marshall Sothern made his way through the narrow lane they made for him. But he did not turn toward Père Marquette's. "Where are you taking him?" demanded Madden suspiciously, again forcing his way to Sothern's elbow. "That's not the way . . ." "I'm taking him to his own home," said Sothern calmly.
Then, his eyes filled with the glint of his purpose, his jaw seeming to grow lean with the determination upon him, Madden made himself as comfortable as conditions permitted in MacLeod's Settlement and settled down to a period of unsleeping watchfulness. He took a room at Père Marquette's.
One of the most stirring books that I have read recently, "The Spirit of Play and the City Streets," is an appeal written by Miss Addams, of Chicago, whose noble work has been for years among the people who live close by Marquette's portage hut an appeal for the recognition of the play instincts and their conversion into a greater permanent human happiness.
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