ns of the Algonquin stock, prowling around the Iroquois camp in
search of scalps, had murdered the inoffensive old man and carried his
scalp in triumph to their village.

Another of their party came near to meeting with an untimely end, but
his ingenuity saved his life. They had abandoned their worthless canoe
and were making their way on foot, living on acorns and roots, when the
young Sieur de Boisrondet wandered off and was lost. The flint of his
gun had dropped out, and he had no bullets. {248} But he cut a pewter
porringer into slugs, discharged his gun with a fire-brand, and thus
killed wild turkeys. After several days he was so fortunate as to
rejoin his party.

The poor fellows suffered terribly from cold and hunger while making
their way along the shore of Lake Michigan, but finally found a
hospitable refuge among the Pottawattamies, of Green Bay, a friendly
Algonquin tribe.

La Salle's heart was as much as ever set on following the Great Water
to the sea. But he had learned the difficulties in the way of building
a vessel and had resolved to travel by canoe.

The winter at Fort Miami was spent by him in organizing the expedition.
With this view he gathered about him a number of Indians from the far
East who had fled for safety to the western wilds after the disastrous
issue of King Philip's War, chiefly Abenakis, from Maine, and Mohegans
from the Hudson. These New England Indians, who had long been the
deadly foes of the English Puritans, were happy in enrolling themselves
under a Frenchman and were ready to go with La Salle anywhere. His
plan was to form a great Indian confederation, like that of the Five
Nations, and powerful enough to resist it. {249} With this powerful
body of Indians, backed by a sufficient number of French guns, he could
hold the Mississippi Valley against all enemies, white or red.

When he had opened the route to the Gulf of Mexico by passing down the
Great River and taking possession of its whole length in the name of
the French King, there would be a new outlet for the immensely valuable
fur-trade of all that vast area drained by it and its tributaries.
Instead of the long journey down the Lakes and the St. Lawrence, trade
would take the shorter and easier route to the Gulf of Mexico.

But how could even La Salle fail to see the enormous difficulties in
the way,--the hostility of remote tribes down the river; the sure
opposition of Spain, which was supreme on and around