Greysolon du Lhut was the captain of coureurs de bois in the northwest. No other leader had such influence with the lawless and daring. When these men were gathered in a settlement, spending what they had earned in drinking and gaming, it was hard to restrain them within civilized bounds. But when they took service to shoulder loads and march into the wilderness, the strongest hand could not keep them from open rebellion and desertion. There were few devoted and faithful voyageurs, such as Pierre Porteret and Jacques had proved themselves in following Marquette. The term of service was usually two years; but at the first hardship some might slip away in the night, even at the risk of perishing before they reached the settlements.
St. Ignace made a procession behind La Salle's party and followed them into the chapel to hear mass—French traders, Ottawas, Hurons, coureurs de bois, squaws, and children. When the priest turned from the altar, he looked down on complexions ranging from the natural pallor of La Salle to the black-red of the most weather-beaten native.
The Hurons then living at St. Ignace, whom Father Marquette had led there from his earlier mission, afterwards wandered to Detroit and Sandusky, the priests having decided to abandon St. Ignace and burn the chapel. In our own day we hear of their descendants as settled in the Indian Territory, the smallest but wealthiest band of all transplanted Indians.
Having entered the lake region with impressive ceremonies, which he well knew how to employ before ignorant men and savages, La Salle threw aside his splendor, and, with his lieutenant, put on the buckskins for marching and canoe journeying into the wilderness. Some of the men he had sent up the lakes with goods nearly a year before had collected a large store of furs, worth much money; and these he determined to send back to Canada on the Griffin, to satisfy his creditors and to give him means for carrying on his plans. He had meant, after sending Tonty on to the Illinois country, to return to Canada and settle his affairs. But it became necessary, as soon as he landed at St. Ignace, to divide his party and send Tonty with some of the men to Sault Ste. Marie after plunderers who had made off with his goods. The others would doubtless desert if left any length of time without a leader. It was a risk also to send his ship back to the colony without standing guard over its safety himself. But he greatly needed the credit which its load of furs would give him. So he determined to send it manned as it was, with orders to return to the head of Lake Michigan as soon as the cargo was safely landed; while he voyaged down the west side of the lake, and Tonty, returning from the Sault, came by the east shore. The reunited party would then have the Griffin as a kind of floating fort or refuge, and by means of it keep easily in communication with the settlements.
La Salle wanted to build a chain of forts from Niagara to the mouth of the Mississippi, when that could be reached. Around each of these, and protected by them, he foresaw settlements of French and Indians, and a vast trade in furs and the products of the undeveloped west. Thus France would acquire a province many times its own size. The undertaking was greater than conquering a kingdom. Nobody else divined at that time the wonderful promise of the west as La Salle pictured it. Little attention had been paid to the discoveries of Marquette and Jolliet. France would have got no benefit from them had not La Salle so soon followed on the track of missionary and trader, verified what had been done, and pushed on.
He had seen Jolliet twice. The first time they met near Niagara, when both were exploring; the second time, Jolliet is said to have stopped with his maps and papers before they were lost at Fort Frontenac, on his return from his Mississippi voyage. La Salle, then master of Fort Frontenac, must have examined these charts and journals with interest. It does not appear that the two men were ever very friendly. Jolliet was too easily satisfied to please La Salle; he had not the ability to spread France's dominion over the whole western wilderness, and that was what La Salle was planning to do before Marquette and Jolliet set out for the Mississippi.