"Now you are aware, monsieur, that we Indians and Voyageurs rarely make greater traverses across the lake than fifteen miles from cape to cape, so that we may be easily able to pull our boats ashore in the annoying caprices of our weather and water.  A passage of twenty-five or thirty miles we call a 'grande traverse,' and one of seventy miles is an impossibility.  Such a traverse was never made before, and only performed this once.  My cousin, however, worked away obediently and cheerfully, and they were soon floating in their nutshell in the middle of the lake like a loon, without compass and out of sight of land.  Very soon, too, they had bad weather.

     "It began to grow stormy, and the water rose in high waves.  My cousin remarked that he had prophesied this, but his pious, earnest passenger read on in his breviary quietly, and only now and then addressed a kind work of encouragement to my cousin, saying that he had not doubted his prophecy about the weather, but he replied to it that he was called across the lake, and God would guide them both to land.  

     "They toiled all night through the storm and waves, and, as the wind was fortunately with them, they moved along very rapidly, although their little bark danced like a feather on the waters.  The next morning they sighted the opposite shore.  But how?  With a threatening front.  Long rows of dark rocks on either side, and at their base a white stripe, the dashing surf of the terribly excited waves.  There was no opening in them, no haven, no salvation.

    " 'We are lost, your reverence,' my cousin said, 'for it is impossible for me to keep the canoe balanced in those double and triple breakers; and a return is equally impossible, owing to the wind blowing so stiffly against us.'

     " 'Paddle on, dear Dubois - straight on.  We must get through, and a way will offer itself.'

     "My cousin shrugged his shoulder, made his last prayers, and paddled straight on, he hardly knew how.  Already they heard the surf dashing near them; they could no longer understand what they said to each other, owing to the deafening noise, and my cousin slipped his couverte from his shoulders, so as to be ready for a swim, when, all at once, a dark spot opened out in the white edge of the surf, which soon widened.  At the same time the violent heaving of the canoe relaxed, it glided on more tranquilly, and entered in perfect safety the broad mouth of a stream, which they had not seen in the distance, owing to the rocks that concealed it.

     " 'Did I not say, Dubois, that I was called across, that I must go, and that thou woulst be saved with me?  Let us pray!' So the man of God spoke to the Voyageur after they had stepped ashore, and drawn their canoe comfortably on the beach.  They then went into the forest, cut down a couple of trees, and erected a cross on the spot where they landed, as a sign of their gratitude.

     "They then went on their way to perform their other duties.  Later, however, a rich merchant, a fur trader, came along the same road, and hearing of this travers, which had became celebrated, he set his men to work, and erected at his own expense, on the same spot, but on a higher rock, a larger and more substantial cross, which now can be seen a long distance on the lake, and which the people call 'The Cross of [Baraga]'s Traverse.' "

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