After a delay of a few days, they found the river free, and again took up their course southwards. A day more brought them to the confluence of the muddy Missouri, which some of my readers have probably seen, where a mighty stream coming down from distant mountains, enters another not so mighty as itself, and plowing its way across its current, burrows under the soil on the opposite shore. This did not detain the voyagers, though they encamped there over night, and then pursued their course towards the unknown. A few days showed them the mouth of the Ohio, but still they pressed onward. It was near the end of February, the temperature was growing perceptibly warmer as they approached the South.
At a certain point they encamped and sent out their hunters for game. One did not return at night, and a horror seized the others, as they thought that he had been overtaken and killed by hostile Indians. Day after day the woods were scoured in the hope of finding the missing companion, but it seemed vain. A fort was erected for the protection of the party on a high bluff, and named for the lost hunter, Prudhomme. At last they met some Chickasaw Indians, and messages of amity were exchanged through them with the people of their village, not far distant. Soon afterwards Prudhomme was discovered, half-dead from exposure, for he had lost his way while hunting.
Thus the expedition progressed for many days, until at last the little canoes found themselves thrust out through the turbid channels of the delta, into the clear salt waters of the Gulf of Mexico. They had stopped on the way after leaving Fort Prudhomme, at several Indian towns, had been well treated by the natives, and they had seen the mouths of the Arkansas and the Red rivers.
The whole valley of the Fatal River had been laid bare to them, and now La Salle thought the time had come to take formal possession for his sovereign.
Near the mouth of the river, the party came together on the ninth of April, 1682, and a ceremony took place that was very similar to the one at the Sault Ste. Marie, a few days less than eleven years before, by which France had taken possession of the Northwest. It did not rival that in the magnificence with which it was conducted, though the ceremonial was, perhaps, a little more elaborated, but it seemed to have a better basis of fact, for La Salle had actually passed through the heart of the region which he now claimed. A column was erected, of course, and a tablet of lead was buried near it, such as those that had been placed in the ground at various other places by Frenchmen, bearing testimony to the fact that Louis the Great claimed to rule the land.
It was nearly the end of November of the following year, when La Salle reached Quebec, after having retraced his route by long and tedious stages up the rivers that he had followed down to the Gulf. Then he returned to France to tell the story of his travels, and began to use his influence to induce the government to send out an expedition to take controlling possession of the Mississippi region. He argued with all his powers, saying that by fortifying the river, the French might control the continent. It was really a grand and brilliant proposition, and the king and his minister gave more than was demanded. Four vessels were prepared, instead of the two that La Salle asked for. The expedition comprised a hundred soldiers, thirty volunteers, many mechanics and laborers, several families and a few girls, who looked forward to certain marriage in the new land.
On the twenty-fourth of July, La Salle set sail from Roehelle, with four hundred men in his four vessels, leaving an affectionate and comforting letter as his last farewell to his mother at Rouen. We have already seen how he was thrown upon the shores of the New World. There, on the sands of Matagorda Bay, with nothing to eat but oysters and a sort of porridge made of the flour that had been saved, the homesick party of downcast men and sorrowing women encamped until their leader could tell them what to do. They did not even know where they were. They were intending to conquer the Spaniards, but they knew nothing of their whereabouts. They were attacked by Indians, and finally, some three weeks after the wreck, the commander of the ships sailed away for France leaving La Salle and his forlorn company behind!
A site was soon chosen on the river now called Lavaca (a corruption of La Vache, the cow, a name given it because buffaloes had been seen there), and a fort was built called St. Louis. La Salle had scarcely finished this establishment, when he determined to search for the Mississippi River, for he had by that time concluded from explorations that he had not found it. On the last day of October, he started, and towards the end of March, the party returned, tattered and worn, almost ready to die; but though the strong body of the leader had given away, his stronger spirit was still unbroken, and he soon determined to set out to find the Illinois region where he left a colony formerly, and where he felt sure he could obtain relief. There was no chance for them to return directly to France since their vessels were all gone, and this seemed their only hope.
A party of twenty was formed to undertake the perilous enterprise, and on the twenty-second of April, 1686, they took their way from the fort, bearing on their persons the contributions that their fellows who were to remain had been able to bring together for their comfort.
The party experienced a variety of hardships, quarrelled among themselves, and finally, on the morning of the eighteenth of March, 1687, one of them shot and killed the brave leader. The remainder kept on, finally reached Canada and were taken to their native land. To the colonists at Fort St. Louis, no ground of hope ever appeared, though they felt that the people of France must have an interest in them, and so they kept a look-out over the water for a ship coming to their relief. It never came, alas, and no one knows to this day what became of the Lost Exiles of Texas!