and the Mississippi, and consequently they may claim the land by right of discovery, especially when they realize the value for trading-posts and for cattle and farm lands.”

“But can they claim the land when they sail only on the _water_?”

“They hold that a discoverer sailing along an unknown river can lay claim to all lands drained by that river, or by creeks flowing into it. But this is absurd when it comes to such a stream as the Mississippi which is the basin for miles and miles of territory, or even with such a river as the Ohio.”

“When did they discover the Mississippi?”

“About seventy-five years ago one Padre Marquette sailed down the stream for several hundred miles, in company with a friend named Joliet. They were French subjects and took possession, so-styled, in the name of the King of France.”

“But what about our claim?”

“Well, to tell the truth, our claim isn’t much better than that of the French. In 1741 the commissioners from Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania met a number of head chiefs of the Six Nations, and the Indians, for four hundred pounds, gave up all their claims to the land lying this side of the Mississippi.”

“Well, that claim ought to be all right, it seems to me.”

“It is all right for the land this side of the Alleghany Mountains, but as for the other I doubt if the Six Nations had any right to deed it away. They never lived on it and the story that they once conquered it is only a tradition.”

“Well, who does the land belong to?”

“To the Indians first, and then to the white people who establish themselves on it. As to what nation shall rule, our country and France will have to settle that between them.”“Then war must surely come?” 

“Probably; although the folks in Europe may have enough of fighting for the present. Very few have forgotten the hardships of the last struggle or the distress which followed. For myself, I do not wish to live to see another war, either with the Indians or the French.”

“Have the French any regular settlement on the Ohio and the Mississippi?”

“I don’t know of any settlement on the Mississippi, but their fur traders are on the upper Ohio, Sam Barringford met several of them when he was 

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