ned 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.

St. Ignace became once more the starting point of an important
expedition, though La Salle, before sending the Griffin back, sailed in
her as far as the Bay of Puans, where many of his furs were collected.
He parted with this good ship in September. She pointed her prow
eastward, and he turned south with fourteen men in four canoes, carrying
tools, arms, goods, and even a blacksmith's forge.

Through storm, and famine, and peril with Indians they labored down the
lake, and did not reach the place where they were to meet Tonty until
the first of November. La Salle had the three Recollet friars with him.
Though one was a man sixty-four years old, he bore, with his companions,
every hardship patiently and