with five men back to Niagara.  His object was in part to get supplies for building a vessel at Fort Crevecoeur, and in part to learn what had become of the Griffin, for since that vessel had sailed homeward he had heard no word from her crew.  Proceeding across what is now southern Michigan, La Salle emerged on the shores of the Detroit River.  From this point he pushed across the neck of land to Lake Erie, where he built a canoe which brought him to Niagara at Eastertide, 1680.  His fears for the fate of the Griffin were now confirmed:  the vessel had been lost, and with her a fortune in furs.  Nothing daunted, however, La Salle hurried on to Fort Frontenac and thence with such speed to Montreal that he accomplished the trip from the Illinois to the Ottawa in less than three months—­a feat hitherto unsurpassed in the annals of American exploration.

At Montreal the explorer, who once more sought the favor of Frontenac, was provided with equipment at the King’s expense.  Within a few months he was again at Fort Frontenac and ready to rejoin Tonty at Crevecoeur.  Just as he was about to depart, however, word came that the Crevecoeur garrison had mutinied and had destroyed the post.  La Salle’s one hope now was that his faithful lieutenant had held on doggedly and had saved the vessel he had been building.  But Tonty in the meantime had made his way with a few followers to Green Bay, so that when La Salle reached the Illinois he found everyone gone.  Undismayed by this climax to his misfortunes, La Salle nevertheless pushed on down the Illinois, and early in December reached its confluence with the Mississippi.

To follow the course of this great stream with the small party which accompanied him seemed, however, too hazardous an undertaking.  La Salle, therefore, retraced his steps once more and spent the next winter at Fort Miami on the St. Joseph to the southeast of Lake Michigan.  In the spring word came to him that Tonty was at Michilimackinac, and thither he hastened, to hear from Tonty’s own lips the long tale of disaster.  “Any one else,” wrote an eye-witness of the meeting, “would have thrown up his hands and abandoned the enterprise; but far from this, with, a firmness and constancy that never had its equal, I saw him more resolved than ever to continue his work and push forward his discovery.”

Now that he had caught his first glimpse of the Mississippi, La Salle was determined to persist until he had followed its course to the outlet.  Returning with Tonty to Fort Frontenac, he replenished his supplies.  In this same autumn of 1681, with a larger number of followers, the explorer was again on his way to the Illinois.  By February the party had reached the Mississippi.  Passing the Missouri and the Ohio, La Salle and his followers kept steadily on their way and early in April reached the spot where the Father of Waters debouches through three channels into the Gulf.  Here at the outlet they set up a column with the insignia of France, and, as they took possession of the land in the name of their King, they chanted in solemn tones the Exaudiat, and in the name of God they set up their banners.