g," he says, "that if I should wait to get others
from Montreal, I should lose a whole year, I said one day before my
people that I was so vexed to find that the absence of two sawyers
would defeat my plans, that I was resolved to try to saw the planks
myself, if I could find a single man who would help me with a will."
Two men stepped forward and said they would try what they could do.
The result was that the work was begun and was pushed along so
successfully that within two weeks the hull of the vessel was half
finished.

La Salle now felt free to make the unavoidable journey to Montreal, to
look after his affairs. His men were in better heart, and the vessel
was well on its way to completion. Leaving the {242} faithful Tonty in
charge of the fort with its garrison, mostly of scoundrels, he set out
with his trusty Mohegan and four Frenchmen.

A few days earlier he had sent off Father Hennepin with two Frenchmen,
to explore the lower part of the Illinois. In another place we shall
read the story of their adventures.

We shall not follow La Salle on his journey back to Canada. It was a
terribly hard experience of sixty-five days' travel through a country
beset with every form of difficulty and swarming with enemies, "the
most arduous journey," says the chronicler, "ever made by Frenchmen in
America." But there was a worse thing to come. When La Salle reached
Niagara, he learned not only the certainty of the "Griffin's" loss,
with her valuable cargo, but that a vessel from France freighted with
indispensable goods for him had been wrecked at the mouth of the St.
Lawrence, and a party of twenty hired men on their way from Europe to
join him had, on their arrival, been so disheartened by reports of his
failure and death, that only four persisted in their purpose.

This was but the beginning of a series of disasters. His agents at
Fort Frontenac had plundered him; his creditors had seized his
property; {243} several of his canoes loaded with furs had been lost in
the rapids of the St. Lawrence; and a letter from Tonty, brought to him
by two _voyageurs_, told him that nearly all the men, after destroying
Fort Crevecoeur, had deserted.

What a blow! Fort Crevecoeur, with its supplies, was the base of his
great enterprise. Now it was destroyed, its garrison gone, and Tonty,
with a few faithful men, alone remained of his costly expedition. But
this lion-hearted man, whom no disasters could daunt, borrowed more