The voyageurs clung to them with all the
tenacity of a pointer on the scent. There were Nolins, Falcons,
Delormes, Faribaults, Lalondes, Leroux, Trottiers, and hundreds of
others, that followed the route until they became almost a part of the
West and retired in old age, to take up a spot on some beautiful bay, or
promontory, and never to return to "Bas Canada." Those from Montreal to
the north of Lake Superior were the pork eaters, because they lived on
dried pork, those west of Lake Superior, "Couriers of the Woods," and
they fed on pemmican, the dried flesh of the buffalo. They were mighty
in strength, daring in spirit, tractable in disposition, eagles in
swiftness, but withal had the simplicity of little children. They made
short the weary miles on the rivers by their smoking "tabac"--the time
to smoke a pipe counting a mile--and by their merry songs, the "Fairy
Ducks" and "La Claire Fontaine," "Malbrouck has gone to the war," or
"This is the beautiful French Girl"--ballads that they still retained
from the French of Louis XIV. They were a jolly crew, full of
superstitions of the woods, and leaving behind them records of daring,
their names remain upon the rivers, towns and cities of the Canadian and
American Northwest.
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