History of Vernon County, Wisconsin. Together with sketches of its towns and villages, educational, civil, military and political history; portraits of prominent persons, and biographies of representative citizens.

              HISTORY OF VERNON COUNTY.
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ing me some fish and offering me lodgings for the night; the former I thankfully received, but preferred my tent to the latter. Parts of two days were spent in getting all things over this long portage, while the peas, pork and cakes had been considerably lessened. The second day, however, we crossed the lake and pitched our tents on the French River.
We had mounted seventeen portages, and we had to descend seventeen more to Lake Huron. The poor men were sadly worn out with the roughness of the last carrying place, and the guide considerately brought to an hour earlier than usual to give them a good rest and an op¬ portunity to wash, a business in which they had thus far spent little time and lesser soap. The only time I tried the experiment of carrying packages was at the last long portage, where I got the guide to tie a pair of strings to a bag of biscuits and load me with it; but it swayed about, and being top heavy, I could not walk steady. Before proceeding twenty yards down I came with the bag in the mud. The men ran to unharness me, and laughed to see me enjoy the fun.
The next morning the sun stepped forth, and with our paddles and songs we merrily left the lake behind us. How many days it took to reach Lake Nipissing from Lachine, or from Nipissing to Lake Huron, I know not, neither is it of any importance to past generations; but of this I am sure, that in due time we reached Lake Huron, and the keenness of the air of that broad sheet of pure water was felt night and day; and even at.this distant period of seventy years, my probocis takes offense at its sufferings at that time.
After getting over those seventeen portages, and running sundry rapids, at times going at the rate of ten knots an hour, we at length reached the big lake; and again, after paddling and working many days, we landed on Grosse island, within nine miles of Mes-she-mic-ka- nock, the Big Turtle; corrupted into Michili¬ mackinac, and finally into Mackinaw.
The traverse being long and dangerous, it was deemed imprudent to undertake it with our full load; and it being late in the day, the guide concluded to encamp, and have everything ready for an early start in the morning. When the morning came I volunteered to guard the baggage at one end of the portage, enabling all hands to engage in the transportation of the goods and canoes; but here I was too desirous of reaching the end of this long journey, and would not stay. In this I was wrong, for one of the men had to remain in charge of the half loads necessarily left, thereby weakening the carrying force, which might have proved seri¬ ous had a high wind occurred. However, all was safe over and in store by sunset.
Here, then, I was in Mackinaw, truly a stranger in a strange land. I knew no one, and my only care was to perform such duties as might be allotted to me without a murmur. Mr. McKinzie's two outfits or equipments had arrived from their trading posts. They called to see me, and I was informed by them that the furs they had brought on here were to be packed in a certain way for transportation by canoe to Montreal. At it I went, and before Mr. Mc¬ Kinzie arrived in a light canoe, the forty or fifty packs were pressed, marked and the bills of the contents of each pack all ready. The men complained of being given little time, but Mr. McKinzie was surprised and pleased to find all in readiness for those who wanted to return without delay to Montreal, yet would stay to distribute the goods, which were brought under my supervision, into the three outfits he in¬ tended to send to trade with the Mississippi In¬ dians the ensuing winter.
Two of the outfits were assigned to two brothers named Lagortroin, and the third to myself. There was also a lot of old remainders of goods from a retail shop Mr. McKinzie had for long years before kept; these, not suitable for the Indian trade, I was directed to pack up and take to St. Louis and make the most of them.    My orders were all  verbal.    My  hour-