the French.”  The Indians showed Radisson a string of beads only used by Europeans.  These people must have been the Spaniards of the south.  The tribes on the Missouri were large men of well-formed figures.  There were no deformities among the people.  Radisson saw corn and pumpkins in their gardens.  “Their arrows were not of stone, but of fish bones. . . .  Their dishes were made of wood. . . .  They had great calumets of red and green stone . . . and great store of tobacco. . . .  They had a kind of drink that made them mad for a whole day.” [14] “We had not yet seen the Sioux,” relates Radisson.  “We went toward the south and came back by the north.”  The Jesuit Relations are more explicit.  Written the year that Radisson returned to Quebec, they state:  “Continuing their wanderings, our two young Frenchmen visited the Sioux, where they found five thousand warriors.  They then left this nation for another warlike people, who with bows and arrows had rendered themselves redoubtable.”  These were the Crees, with whom, say the Jesuits, wood is so rare and small that nature has taught them to make fire of a kind of coal and to cover their cabins with skins of the chase.  The explorers seem to have spent the summer hunting antelope, buffalo, moose, and wild turkey.  The Sioux received them cordially, supplied them with food, and gave them an escort to the next encampments.  They had set out southwest to the Mascoutins, Mandans, and perhaps, also, the Omahas.  They were now circling back northeastward toward the Sault between Lake Michigan and Lake Superior.  How far westward had they gone?  Only two facts gave any clew.  Radisson reports that mountains lay far inland; and the Jesuits record that the explorers were among tribes that used coal.  This must have been a country far west of the Mandans and Mascoutins and within sight of at least the Bad Lands, or that stretch of rough country between the prairie and outlying foothills of the Rockies.[15] The course of the first exploration seems to have circled over the territory now known as Wisconsin, perhaps eastern Iowa and Nebraska, South Dakota, Montana, and back over North Dakota and Minnesota to the north shore of Lake Superior.  “The lake toward the north is full of rocks, yet great ships can ride in it without danger,” writes Radisson.  At the Sault they found the Crees and Sautaux in bitter war.  They also heard of a French establishment, and going to visit it found that the Jesuits had established a mission.

Radisson had explored the Southwest.  He now decided to essay the Northwest.  When the Sautaux were at war with the Crees, he met the Crees and heard of the great salt sea in the north.  Surely this was the Sea of the North—­Hudson Bay—­of which the Nipissing chief had told Groseillers long ago.  Then the Crees had great store of beaver pelts; and trade must not be forgotten.  No sooner had peace been arranged between Sautaux and Crees, than Cree hunters flocked out of the northern forests