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.
"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.

'T is a strange flat country, with much broken land extending to the northward." Little by little our conversation lapsed into silence; for the narrow trail we followed was a most difficult one, and at times taxed our ingenuity to the utmost.

It led through dense dark woods, fortunately free from underbrush, skirted the uncertain edges of numerous marshes in the soft ooze of which the hoofs of our horses sank dangerously, and for several miles followed the sinuous course of a small but rapid stream, the name of which I have forgotten.