rshes where the water was waist deep or even more,--all this did not
prevent me from going to Fort Frontenac to bring back the things we
needed and to learn myself what had become of my vessel."

Carrying their canoes where the river was frozen, and finally leaving
them hidden near where the town of Joliet now stands, La Salle and his
men pushed on until they reached the fort built at the mouth of the St.
Joseph. Here he found the two voyageurs he had sent to search for the
Griffin. They said they had been around the lake and could learn nothing
of her. He then directed them to Tonty, while he marched up the eastern
shore. This Michigan region was debatable ground among the Indians,
where they met to fight; and he left significant marks on the trees, to
make prowlers think he had a large war party. A dozen or twenty roving
savages, ready to pounce like ferocious wildcats on a camp, always
peeled white places on the trees, and cut pictures there of their totem,
or tribe mark, and the scalps and prisoners they had taken. They
respected a company more numerous than themselves, and avoided it.

Stopping to nurse the sick when some fell ill of exposure, or to build
canoes when canoes were needed, La Salle did not reach Fort Niagara
until Easter, and it was May when Fort Frontenac came into view.

No man ever suffered more from treachery. Before he could get
together the supplies he needed, trouble after trouble fell upon him.
The men that Tonty had sent to tell him about the destruction of Fort
Crevecoeur were followed by others who brought word that the deserters
had destroyed his forts at the St. Joseph River and Niagara, and carried
off all the goods. The Griffin was certainly lost. And before going back
to the Illinois country he was obliged to chase these fellows and take
from them what could be recovered. But when everybody else seemed
to be against him, it was much comfort to remember he had a faithful
lieutenant while the copper-handed Italian lived.

La Salle gathered twenty-five men of trades useful to him, and another
outfit with all that he needed for a ship, having made new arrangements
with his creditors; and going by way of Michilimackinac, he reached the
St. Joseph early in November.

Whenever, in our own day, we see the Kankakee still gliding along its
rocky bed, or the solemn Illinois spreading betwixt wooded banks, it is
easy to imagine a birch canoe just appearing around a bend, carrying La
Salle or T