Page:Joutel's journal of La Salle's last voyage, 1684-7 (IA joutelsjournalof00jout).pdf/34

 vessel of 40 tons' burden with which to descend the river to the Mississippi. He also sent Hennepin and two others in a canoe to explore the Illinois to its junction with the larger river. He himself, having now given up all hopes of the Griffin, began a return to Canada, for needed supplies, in canoes, with four Frenchmen and an Indian hunter, leaving the faithful Tonti, with a dozen or so men to hold the fort and guard the half-finished ship. It was a desperate journey, but he felt that unless the articles lost in the Griffin were replaced without delay, the expedition would be retarded for a full year, and probably utterly foiled by the additional expense which would be incurred for the support of his men. On the way he met the two men whom he had sent back to Michilimackinac in search of the Griffin, but they brought him no tidings of her fate, and ordering them to join Tonti at Fort Crèvecœur, he pressed firmly on. He also took occasion to examine the capabilities of the "Starved Rock" upon the Illinois, and sent back word to Tonti to make it a stronghold of defense in case of necessity. His journey occupied sixty-five days of incessant toil, danger, and accidents that rendered it "the most adventurous one ever made by a Frenchman in America;" he himself was the only one of the party who did not break down, either from fatigue or illness, and when Lake Erie was reached, it was his arm alone which ferried their canoe over to the blockhouse at Niagara. They reached Fort Frontenac on the 6th of May, and he pushed on directly to Montreal.

His sudden reappearance there caused the greatest as-*

such as blankets, clothing, kettle, hatchet, gun, powder, lead, and skins to make moccasins; sometimes pushing through thickets, sometimes climbing rocks covered with ice and snow, sometimes wading whole days through marshes where the water was waist-deep, or even more, at a season when the snow was not entirely melted—though I knew of this, it did not prevent me from resolving to go on foot to Fort Frontenac, to learn for myself what had become of my vessel, and bring back the things we needed."—Parkman's La Salle (Champlain edit.), i, 189-90.]
 * [Footnote: *out food; watch by night and march by day, loaded with baggage