With the information they read in The Oregon Trail Revisited, Jack and the girl imagine the experiences of the emigrants who, in the 1840s, traveled the trail in wagon trains. Jack, the girl, and the cat-now named Chop Suey-begin their journey along the Oregon Trail, presuming it will lead them to Théo. La Grande Sauterelle acquires The Oregon Trail Revisited, a book Théo’s police record listed as among his possessions.
Louis and, from an old newspaper article, learn that Théo was accused of attempting to steal an old map from a nearby museum. Having crossed into the United States and still on Théo’s trail, Jack and the girl visit art museums in Detroit and Chicago and then go to Starved Rock, where the girl tells Jack the legend of the Illinois Indians. When morning comes, she is still “unreconciled.” However, doubts about the chief’s character sabotage the girl’s vigil beside the grave. She feels torn between her Indian and white identities and hopes sleeping beside the famous chief’s grave might help her reconcile these identities. In another blow to Jack’s pantheon of heroes, Toronto police records show that Théo was arrested there for possession of an unlicensed firearm.Īt La Grande Sauterelle’s request, they stop for the night near the site of Chief Thayendanegea’s grave. During their stop-over in Toronto, La Grande Sauterelle “borrows” a book from the library about Étienne Brûlé, which reveals details about his life that shock and disappoint Jack. Louis, the city Théo wrote beside his name in the visitor log at the Gaspé museum. He has always regarded his strong, daring brother with the same reverence as the French explorers. Jack says that, as children, he and Théo worshipped the explorers Cartier and Étienne Brûlé along with other heroes of French-Canadian history. The girl is clear-sighted and self-confident and helps Jack discover that the enigmatic words on Théo’s postcard are those of Jacques Cartier, the 16th-century French explorer of North America. The girl, along with her black kitten, joins Jack in his search for Théo. In Gaspé, the northern Quebec town from which Théo sent Jack his last postcard years ago, Jack meets La Grande Sauterelle, a 21-year-old “Métis” (part white and part Indian). Lacking inspiration to write another book, he sets out from Quebec City in his Volkswagen to find his brother, Théo, whom he hasn’t seen in 15 years. At age 40, a French Canadian writer who uses the pen name Jack Waterman has published five novels, but none of them satisfy him.
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