" His
ailment left him, but weakness and the cold and the ice in the rivers kept
him still at the portage until April. On the eve of his leaving for the
Illinois the journal ends with this thoughtful word of the French: "If the
French procure robes in this country, they do not disrobe the savages, so
great are the hardships that must be endured to obtain them." [Footnote:
"Jesuit Relations" (Thwaites), 59:183.]
In the dusk of an autumn day I went out to find the place where the Novena
had worked the miracle of his healing. As I have already intimated, few of
all the hundreds of thousands there in that great city have had any
consciousness of the background of French heroism and suffering and
prevision in front of which they were passing daily, but I found that the
policemen and the watchmen on the railroad near the river knew at least of
the great black cross which stands by that drab and sluggish water, placed
there in memory of Marquette and Joliet. The bit of high ground where the
hut stood is now surrounded by great looming sheds and factories, which
were entirely tenantless when I found my way through a long unlighted and
unpaved street in the direction of the river.
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