Although Radisson was not yet twenty-eight years of age, his explorations into the Great Northwest had won him both fame and fortune. So this is the way that he spent his life. Voyaging, trapping, trading, he covered all this great, wild country, paddled up her rivers, fished in her lakes, smoked the pipe of peace in her settlements. In ten years’ time he brought half a million dollars’ worth of furs to an English trading company which employed him. Yet, with all his explorations, all his adventures, all his trading, as he grew old, he remained as poor as one of the _couriers de bois_ who used to paddle him up the streams of New France. Until the year 1710 he drew an allowance of £50 a year ($250) from the English Hudson Bay Trading Company, then payments seemed to have stopped. Radisson had a wife and four children to support, but what happened to him, or to them, is unknown to history. Somewhere in the vast country of New France the life of this daring adventurer went out. And somewhere in that vast possession lies the body of this, the first white man to explore the Great Northwest. Oblivion hides all record of his death, and only the cry of the moose-bird, harsh, discordant—the true call of the wilderness—echoes over the unknown spot where lie, no doubt, the bones of this trickster of the Mohawks and explorer of the wastes of New France. Memorial tablets have been erected in many cities to commemorate La Salle, Champlain, and other discoverers. Radisson has no monument, save the memory of a valiant man-of-the-woods, reverently held in the hearts of all those who love the hemlock forests, the paddle, the pack, and the magnetic call of the wilderness. FATHER MARQUETTE: TRUE MAN OF GOD, AND EXPLORER OF THE MIGHTY MISSISSIPPI. (1637-1675) _The wild goose honked its message of fear,_ _As it winged away o’er the marshes sere,_ _And the little brown teal went, “quack, quack, quack,”_ _it fled from the man all dressed in black._ _But he, a priest, had a smile on his lips,_ _For he saw a stream with the sunset kissed,_ _And he raised aloft his hand, with a cross,_ _And blessed the waves, which the wild winds toss._ FATHER MARQUETTE: TRUE MAN OE GOD, AND EXPLORER OF THE MIGHTY MISSISSIPPI. (1637-1675) MANY, many years ago, when the Indian tribes inhabited the wilderness of North America, a good priest came among them to teach them the ways of Christ. He was a Frenchman called Père, or Father Marquette, and he had been born at Laon, France, June 1st., 1627.