But I would dare and do.”
After La Salle's departure the brave and faithful Tonty began to experience in turn the frowns of fortune. While superintending the erection of a new fort at a spot selected by La Salle, Tonty received the news of an insurrection at Fort Crèvecœur. This, too, was instigated by La Salle's enemies. Deserted by more than half his party, Tonty took up his quarters at the great Indian village, where he was treated with hospitality. After a residence there of six months a war-party of Iroquois and Miamis approached the village, and for a long time Tonty and Father Membré, at great peril and with much ill treatment at the hands of the invading savages, endeavored to negotiate a peace. Failing in every effort, and finding that dangers and perils were gathering thick and fast around him, Tonty resolved to make his escape with his remaining five companions, which he succeeded in accomplishing, in an old and leaky canoe, on the 18th of September. On the following day, about twenty-five miles from the village, they drew the canoe to the shore for repairs. While thus engaged they had the misfortune of losing for ever the great and good Father Gabriel de La Ribourde, who, with a mind fond of the beautiful in nature, as well as with a soul that loved all men, had wandered too far up the banks of the river, drawn on by the picturesque scenery that lay before him, was met by three young Kickapoo warriors, and fell a victim to the unsparing tomahawk. After passing, with heavy hearts, over ice and snow, rambling for some time almost at random in the woods, and enduring hunger and delays, they fortunately reached a village of the Potawatamies, where they were received with hospitality. Tonty was detained at the village by a severe and dangerous illness. Father Membré advanced to the missionary station at Green Bay; here they all met in the spring, and then proceeded to Mackinac to await the return of La Salle.
In the meantime La Salle, after stopping twenty-four hours at the Indian village which he had previously visited, and finding that the two men whom he had despatched from the Miami River to Mackinac had obtained no tidings of the Griffin, now abandoned every lingering hope for her safety. He pressed forward on his great journey, only to hear of new disasters and losses at Fort Frontenac. The fact that he accomplished such a journey under such circumstances is sufficient to illustrate the endurance and unbending resolution of this great explorer. Of this chapter in the history of La Salle Bancroft thus writes:
“Yet here the immense power of his will appeared. Dependent on himself, fifteen hundred miles from the nearest French settlement, impoverished, pursued by enemies at Quebec, and in the wilderness surrounded by uncertain nations, he inspired his men with resolution to saw trees into plank and prepare a bark; he despatched Louis Hennepin to explore the Upper Mississippi; he questioned the Illinois and their southern [pg 699]captives on the course of the Mississippi; he formed conjectures concerning the Tennessee River; and then, as new recruits were needed, and sails and cordage for the bark, in the month of March, with a musket and a pouch of powder and shot, with a blanket for his protection, and skins of which to make moccasins, he, with three companions, set off on foot for Fort Frontenac, to trudge through thickets and forests, to wade through marshes and melting snows, having for his pathway the ridge of highlands which divide the basin of the Ohio from that of the lakes—without drink, except water from the brooks; without food, except supplies from his gun. Of his thoughts on that long journey no record exists.”
He arrived safely at Fort Frontenac, but his affairs had all gone wrong in his absence. In the destruction of his vessel and cargo he had sustained a loss of a large portion of his means; besides this, his agents had plundered him in the fur trade on Lake Ontario; a vessel freighted with merchandise for him had been lost in the Bay of St. Lawrence; his heavily-laden canoes had been dashed to pieces by the rapids above Montreal; some of his men, corrupted by his enemies, had deserted, carrying his property among the Dutch in New York, and his creditors, availing themselves of a report, gotten up by his enemies, that he and his companions had been lost, had seized on his remaining effects, and sacrificed them in the market. But one friend remained to him in all Canada—the Comte de Frontenac. The undaunted La Salle still pushed forward his work; having arranged his affairs as well as he could, he secured the services of La Forest as an officer, and engaged more men. On the 23d of July, 1680, he set out on his return. Detained more than a month on Lake Ontario by head-winds, he reached Mackinac in the middle of September, and the Miami towards the end of November. Proceeding to the spot where he had left Tonty, he found his forts abandoned, the Illinois village abandoned, and could hear nothing of the companions whom he had left behind him. He now heard of the Iroquois war, and spent some time and effort in endeavoring to effect an alliance of all the neighboring tribes against the Illinois. Finding it impossible to accomplish his purpose for want of a larger force, he returned to the Miami River late in May, 1681, and about the middle of June he had the happiness of saluting Tonty and his companions in the harbor of Mackinac. The two cavaliers sat down together, and related to each other their respective misfortunes and hardships. Thus another year's delay was occasioned; but in the meantime the trade with the Indians was prosecuted with vigor. Some idea may be formed of the material of which these two men were made when it is related that even now, when all their plans had failed and all seemed lost to them, the ardor with which they first commenced this wonderful task remained unbroken and undiminished. In order to renew their preparations for the exploration of the Mississippi, they all set out in a few days for Fort Frontenac, from which La Salle had already twice departed with the bold and lofty purpose of exploring and laying open to the world the interior geography of the continent. An eyewitness to these interesting conferences between La Salle and Tonty relates that the former maintained “his ordinary coolness and self-possession. Any one but him would have renounced and abandoned the enterprise; but, far from that, by a firmness of mind and an almost unequalled constancy, I saw him more resolute than ever to continue his [pg 700] work and to carry out his discovery.”[160]
As already mentioned, Father Hennepin had been commissioned by the captain to explore, with his selected companions, the Upper Mississippi, probably the last aspiration of La Salle after the discovery of the northwest passage to the China Sea. Proceeding down the Illinois to its mouth, Father Hennepin directed his canoe up the unexplored stream, and on the eleventh day he and his companions were near the Wisconsin River. Turning up this river, they proceeded nineteen days, when the grand cataract burst for the first time upon the view of Europeans.
“It hath a thousand tongues of mirth,
Of grandeur, or delight,
And every heart is gladder made
When water greets the sight.”