He sent one of the Frenchmen, Michel Accault, together with Father Hennepin, to explore the Illinois down to the Mississippi; de Tonty he placed in charge of the fort with a small garrison; and then himself, on the last day of February, 1680, started to walk overland from Lake Michigan to Detroit.  Eventually, by means of a canoe, which he constructed himself, he regained Fort Frontenac and Montreal.  When he returned to Fort Crevecoeur, on the Illinois River,[11] it was to meet with the signs of a horrible disaster.  The Iroquois in his absence had descended on the place with a great war party.  They had massacred the Illinois people dwelling in a big settlement near the fort, and the remains of their mutilated bodies were scattered all over the place.  Their town had been burnt; the fort was empty and abandoned.  There were no traces of the Frenchmen, however, amongst the skulls and skeletons lying around him; for the skulls retained sufficient hair to show that they belonged to Amerindians.  Nevertheless, he deposited his new stock of goods and most of his men in the ruins of the Fort Crevecoeur, and descended the River Illinois to the Mississippi.  But he was obliged to turn back.  On the west bank of the river were the scared Illinois Indians, on the east the raging Iroquois.  Whenever La Salle could safely visit a deserted camp he would examine the remains of the tortured men tied to stakes to see if amongst them there was a Frenchman.

[Footnote 11:  He had named this place “Heartbreak” because when building it he had learnt of the loss of his sailing ship Griffon, with the splendid supply of furs which was to have paid off his debts, with all his reserve supplies and his men.  This was not the limit of his troubles; for, after the overland journey of appalling hardships through a country of melting ice, flood, swamp, and hostile Iroquois—­the Iroquois being furious with La Salle for having outwitted them in the building of this fort, and seeking him everywhere to destroy him—­when he got to Montreal it was only to learn that a ship, coming from France with further supplies for his great journey had been wrecked at the mouth of the St. Lawrence!]

But de Tonty was not dead.  After incredible adventures he had escaped the raids of the Iroquois and had reached the Straits of Michili-makinak, between Lakes Michigan and Huron, and there met La Salle, who was once more on his way to Montreal.

Again de La Salle and de Tonty, in the winter of 1681, returned to the south end of Lake Michigan, and made their way over the snow to the Illinois River.  On the 6th February, 1682, they left the junction of the Illinois and the Mississippi to trace that great river to its outlet in the sea.  La Salle reached the delta on the 6th April, 1682, having on the way taken possession of the country in the name of the King of France.  Accault and Father Hennepin had meantime paddled up the Northern Mississippi as far as its junction with the Wisconsin.  At this place their party was surrounded and captured by a large band of Siou warriors.