It had gone all the way from the humble Jesuit mission at the foot of Lake Superior to France, that the greatest river of America was as good as found,—the greatest, because all admitted that only its head streams could have been touched, while it was seen that its course must of necessity lie on one or the other side of the mountains of New Mexico,—toward the Gulf of Mexico or the Vermilion Sea. But on which side they could not tell. Of course there were two opinions. Some favored one, some the other, but either belief announced the river of the continent. Whoever should first plant themselves at its mouth, would inevitably control its whole course. And so the idea took root in the minds of the statesmen and geographers of the time, who set about trying to map out the destiny of the future empire. [Illustration: LOUIS XIV.] The shrewdest among the French explorers did not believe that the Mississippi and Colorado could be the same, or that the great river flowed into the South Sea. Father Allouez, as we have seen, thought otherwise. In any case an incentive had been found for more earnest effort, with more definite aims. There began to be, in America, a really national question. So it was that step by step that great mysterious river which had so long flowed through men's brains, grew at last into definiteness, though still waiting for the veil of centuries to be lifted. So far America had been the orange to be squeezed by whoever should possess it. Louis, like the rest, no doubt looked more to the revenue he hoped to get from New France, than to the mere glory of extending his dominions in that quarter, though he was also ambitious of doing this. Yet for either purpose he must have suitable agents, while his political aims in Europe would be furthered by crippling the English and Spanish colonies in America. The English were to be hemmed in on the seaboard, while the Spaniards would find themselves checked from advancing beyond the limits they already occupied. When the royal arms of France were raised at Sault St. Marie, New England was pushing out toward the east, not the west. No English could be found west of the Hudson. No word of English had been heard beyond Lake Ontario. There was not yet a Pennsylvania. Virginia lay east of the Blue Ridge; the Carolinas were but recently settled; Florida was hardly more than a Spanish military post. In all times large views demand large men for their execution. In looking about him for a governor who ought to be more of a soldier than politician, less a courtier than a man of action, though something of both, the king's eye fell upon Count Frontenac, whose rule somewhat resembled that of his august master, in the attempted concentration of all power in himself.