CHAPTER XX.

1681-1682. SUCCESS OF LA SALLE. His Followers.--The Chicago Portage.--Descent of the Mississippi.--The Lost Hunter.--The Arkansas.--The Taensas.--The Natchez.--Hostility.--The Mouth of the Mississippi.--Louis XIV. proclaimed Sovereign of the Great West. The season was far advanced. On the bare limbs of the forest hung a few withered remnants of its gay autumnal livery; and the smoke crept upward through the sullen November air from the squalid wigwams of La Salle's Abenaki and Mohegan allies. Th…