expense, the
discovery already begun. Back in Canada the following year, La Salle
thoroughly prepared for this expedition, accumulating provisions at Fort
Niagara, and visiting the Indian tribes. In 1679, accompanied by the
Chevalier de Tonti, he set out at the head of a small troop, and passed
through Michilimackinac, then through the Baie des Puants. From there he
reached the Miami River, where he erected a small fort, ascended the
Illinois, and, reaching a camp of the Illinois Indians, made an alliance
with this tribe, obtaining from them permission to erect upon their soil
a fort which he called Crevecoeur. He left M. de Tonti there with a few
men and two Recollet missionaries, Fathers de la Ribourde and Membre,
and set out again with all haste for Fort Frontenac, for he was very
anxious regarding the condition of his own affairs. He had reason to be.
"His creditors," says the Abbe Ferland, "had had his goods seized after
his departure from Fort Frontenac; his brigantine _Le Griffon_ had been
lost, with furs valued at thirty thousand francs; his employees had
appropriated his goods; a ship which was bringing him from France a
cargo valued at twenty-two thousand francs had been wrecked on the
Islands of St. Pierre; some canoes laden with merchandise had been
dashed to pieces on the journey between Montreal and Frontenac; the men
whom he had brought from France had fled to New York, taking a portion
of his goods, and already a conspiracy was on foot to disaffect the
Canadians in his service. In one word, according to him, the whole of
Canada had conspired against his enterprise, and the Count de Frontenac
was the only one who consented to support him in the midst of his
misfortunes." His remarkable energy and activity remedied this host of
evils, and he set out again for Fort Crevecoeur. To cap the climax of
his misfortunes, he found it abandoned; being attacked by the Iroquois,
whom the English had aroused against them, Tonti and his comrades had
been forced to hasty flight. De la Salle found them again at
Michilimackinac, but he had the sorrow of learning of the loss of
Father de la Ribourde, whom the Illinois had massacred. Tonti and his
companions, in their flight, had been obliged to abandon an unsafe
canoe, which had carried them half-way, and to continue their journey on
foot. Such a series of misfortunes would have discouraged any other than
La Salle; on the contrary, he made Tonti and Father Membre retrace the