"If true tales be told of the water around the Bay of the Puans," one of the voyageurs was heard to say as he stretched himself under the canoe allotted to the men, "we may save our salt when we pass that country." "Have you ever heard, Father," Jolliet inquired of the missionary, "that the word Puan meant foul or ill-smelling instead of salty?" "I know," Marquette answered, "that salt has a vile odor to the Indians. They do not use it with their food, preferring to season that instead with the sugar they make from the maple tree. Therefore, the bay into which we are soon to venture they call the Bay of the Fetid, or ill-smelling salty country, on account of saline water thereabout." "Then why do the Winnebago tribe on this bay allow themselves to be called Puans?" "That has never been explained by the missionaries sent to that post, though the name seems to carry no reproach. They are well made and tall of stature. I find Wild Oats a stranger name--the Menomonies are Wild Oats Indians. Since the gospel has been preached to all these tribes for some years past, I trust we may find good Christians among them." "What else have you learned about the country?" "Father Dablon told me that the way to the head of that river called Fox, up which we must paddle, is as hard as the way to heaven, specially the rapids. But when you arrive there it is a natural paradise." "We have tremendous labor before us," mused Jolliet. "Father, did you ever have speech with that Jean Nicollet, who, first of any Frenchman, got intimations of the great river?" "I never saw him." "There was a man I would have traveled far to see, though he was long a renegade among savages, and returned to the settlements only to die." "Heaven save this expedition from becoming renegade among savages by forgetting its highest object!" breathed Marquette. His companion smiled toward the pleasant fire-light. Jolliet had once thought of becoming a priest himself. He venerated this young apostle, only half a dozen years his senior. But he was glad to be a free adventurer, seeking wealth and honor; not foreseeing that though the great island of Anticosti in the Gulf of St. Lawrence would be given him for his services, he would die a poor and neglected man.