Four old men now advanced from the village on the stream, bearing with them the calumet of peace, a tobacco pipe, with a reed stem some two or three feet in length, ornamented with many colored feathers. Already familiar with this sign of amity, the white men knew they had now nothing to fear. The villagers were _Illinois_, which is the Indian word for “men;” and men they quickly proved themselves to be. Conducted to the wigwam of an aged chief, the French explorers were plied with eager questions; and when they told of the breaking of the power of the Iroquois by the “great Captain of the French,” the assembled “men” greeted the announcement with shouts of joy. Then followed the usual instruction in the broad truths of Christianity, and again the “men” rejoiced, doubtless connecting in their simple untutored minds the two items of good news. A grand feast was held in honor of those who had brought them, and when it was over, the visitors were escorted to their canoes by the chief and hundreds of his followers. With a peace-pipe, the parting gift of the Illinois, hung round his neck as a charm against future dangers, Marquette continued his course, which now led him between the present States of Missouri and Illinois, among the weird perpendicular rocks forming so characteristic a feature of this part of the country, till he came to the junction of the Mississippi with its mighty and turbulent affluent, the Missouri, where the city of St. Louis now stands. Illustration: THE MISSISSIPPI AT ST. LOUIS. (1885.) Overwhelmed with delight at the beauty of the scene before him, Marquette could hardly refrain from entering the Missouri then and there, to trace it to its source; but curbing his ardor――to be, as he vainly hoped, indulged at some future time――he continued his course down the now greatly augmented Mississippi, passing its junction with the Wabash or Ohio, and the homes of the peaceful Shawanees, till, with Tennessee on one hand and Arkansas on the other, he approached the most northerly limit reached by De Soto. There could be no doubt now of the identity of the Father of Waters with the Miche Sepe to which the Spanish hero had been led with the remnant of his forces by his Chickasaw guides; and Marquette felt that his work was practically done. He determined, however, to enter the land of the Arkansas, and reached the village of the Mitchigamea (N. lat. 33°), where, for the first time on this wonderful trip, the natives came out against him with hostile intentions. Armed with bows and arrows, clubs, etc., the Arkansas warriors closed round the little birch-bark canoes in their own larger vessels, and it seemed for a moment as if the fate of the intruders was sealed; but, rising up among the gesticulating crowds, Marquette held his calumet aloft, and, as if by magic, the weapons sunk, and the yells of rage were converted into shouts of welcome. Illustration: MOUTH OF THE OHIO RIVER.