Hennepin's statements: "Mr. du Lude le premier a este chez les Sioux en
1678, et a este proche la source du Mississippi, et ensuite vint retirer
le P. Louis (_Hennepin_) qui avoit este fait prisonnier chez les Sioux."
Du Lhut here appears as the deliverer of Hennepin.]

When Hennepin met him, he had been about two years in the wilderness. In
September, 1678, he left Quebec for the purpose of exploring the region of
the Upper Mississippi, and establishing relations of friendship with the
Sioux and their kindred, the Assiniboins. In the summer of 1679, he
visited three large towns of the eastern division of the Sioux, including
those visited by Hennepin. in the following year, and planted the king's
arms in all of them. Early in the autumn, he was at the head of Lake
Superior, holding a council with the Assiniboins and the lake tribes, and
inducing them to live at peace with the Sioux. In all this, he acted in a
public capacity, under the authority of the Governor; but it is not to be
supposed that he forgot his own interests or those of his associates. The
Intendant angrily complains that he aided and abetted the _coureurs de
bois_ in their lawless courses, and sent down in their canoes great
quantities of beaver-skins consigned, to the merchants in league with him,
under cover of whose names the Governor reaped his share of the profits.

In June, 1680, while Hennepin was in the Sioux villages, Du Lhut set out
from the head of Lake Superior with two canoes, four Frenchmen, and an
Indian, to continue his explorations. [Footnote: Abstracts of letters in
_Memoir on the French Dominion in Canada, N. Y. Col. Docs_., ix. 781.] He
ascended a river, apparently the Burnt Wood, and reached from thence a
branch of the Mississippi which seems to have been the St. Croix. It was
now that, to his surprise, he learned that there were three Europeans on
the main river below; and, fearing that they might be Englishmen or
Spaniards, encroaching on the territories of the king, he eagerly pressed