“Where is your lodge?”

“On the other side of the river.”

“Good—­then you have a canoe here.  Can you take us across?”

“Yes—­the canoe is very small.”

They conducted us down the bank to the water’s edge where the canoe was.  It was indeed very small.  My husband explained to them that they must take me across first, and then return for the others of the party.

“Will you trust yourself alone over the river?” inquired he.  “You see that but one can cross at a time.”

“Oh, yes”—­and I was soon placed in the bottom of the canoe, lying flat and looking up at the sky, while the older squaw took the paddle in her hand, and placed herself on her knees at my head, and the younger, a girl of fourteen or fifteen, stationed herself at my feet.  There was just room enough for me to lie in this position, each of the others kneeling in the opposite ends of the canoe.

While these preparations were making, Mr. Kinzie questioned the women as to our whereabout.  They knew no name for the river but “Saumanong.”  This was not definite, it being the generic term for any large stream.  But he gathered that the village we had passed higher up, on the opposite side of the stream, was Wau-ban-see’s, and then he knew that we were on the Fox River, and probably about fifty miles from Chicago.

The squaw, in answer to his inquiries, assured him that Chicago was “close by.”

“That means,” said he, “that it is not so far off as Canada.  We must not be too sanguine.”

The men set about unpacking the horses, and I in the mean time was paddled across the river.  The old woman immediately returned, leaving the younger one with me for company.  I seated myself on the fallen trunk of a tree, in the midst of the snow, and looked across the dark waters.  I am not ashamed to confess my weakness—­for the first time on my journey I shed tears.  It was neither hunger, nor fear, nor cold, which extorted them from me.  It was the utter desolation of spirit, the sickness of heart which “hope deferred” ever occasions, and which of all evils is the hardest to bear.

The poor little squaw looked into my face with a wondering and sympathizing expression.  Probably she was speculating in her own mind what a person who rode so fine a horse, and wore so comfortable a broadcloth dress, could have to cry about.  I pointed to a seat beside me on the log, but she preferred standing and gazing at me, with the same pitying expression.  Presently she was joined by a young companion, and, after a short chattering, of which I was evidently the subject, they both trotted off into the woods, and left me to my own solitary reflections.

“What would my friends at the East think,” said I to myself, “if they could see me now?  What would poor old Mrs. Welsh say?  She who warned me that if I came away so far to the West, I should break my heart? Would she not rejoice to find how likely her prediction was to be fulfilled?”