Among the leaders of the _coureurs-de-bois_ several names stand out prominently. François Dauphine de la Forêt, Nicholas Perrot, and Henri de Tonty, the lieutenants of La Salle, Alphonse de Tonty, Antoine de La Mothe-Cadillac, Greysolon Du Lhut and his brother Greysolon de la Tourette, Pierre Esprit Radisson and Médard Chouart de Groseilliers, Olivier Morel de la Durantaye, Jean-Paul Le Gardeur de Repentigny, Louis de la Porte de Louvigny, Louis and Juchereau Joliet, Pierre LeSueur, Boucher de la Perrière, Jean Peré, Pierre Jobin, Denis Massé, Nicholas d'Ailleboust de Mantet, François Perthuis, Etienne Brulé, Charles Juchereau de St. Denis, Pierre Moreau _dit_ La Toupine, Jean Nicolet--these are only the few who connected themselves with some striking event which has transmitted their names to posterity. Many of them have left their imprint upon the geographical nomenclature of the Middle West. Hundreds of others, the rank and file of this picturesque array, gained no place upon the written records, since they took part in no striking achievement worthy of mention in the dispatches and memoirs of their day. The _coureur-de-bois_ was rarely a chronicler. If the Jesuits did not deign to pillory him in their _Rélations_, or if the royal officials did not single him out for praise in the memorials which they sent home to France each year, the _coureur-de-bois_ might spend his whole active life in the forest without transmitting his name or fame to a future generation. And that is what most of them did. A few of the voyageurs found that one trip to the wilds was enough and never took to the trade permanently. But the great majority, once the virus of the free life had entered their veins, could not forsake the wild woods to the end of their days. The dangers of the life were great, and the mortality among the traders was high. _Coureurs de risques_ they ought to have been called, as La Hontan remarks. But taken as a whole they were a vigorous, adventurous, strong-limbed set of men. It was a genuine compliment that they paid to the wilderness when they chose to spend year after year in its embrace.