auspicious day was passed in feasts and dances, in which La Salle and his
Frenchmen all bore part. His new scheme was hopefully begun; the ground
was broken, and the seed sown. It remained to achieve the enterprise,
twice defeated, of the discovery of the mouth of the Mississippi, that
vital condition of his triumph, without which all other successes were
meaningless and vain.

To this end he must return to Canada, appease his creditors, and collect
his scattered resources. Towards the end of May, he set out in canoes from
Fort Miami, and reached Michillimackinac after a prosperous voyage. Here,
to his great joy, he found Tonty and Zenobe Membre, who had lately arrived
from Green Bay. The meeting was one at which even his stoic nature must
have melted. Each had for the other a tale of disaster; but, when La Salle
recounted the long succession of his reverses, it was with the tranquil
tone and cheerful look of one who relates the incidents of an ordinary
journey. Membre looked on him with admiration. "Any one else," he says,
"would have thrown up his hand, and abandoned the enterprise; but, far
from this, with a firmness and constancy that never had its equal, I saw
him more resolved than ever to continue his work and push forward his
discovery." [Footnote: Membre, in Le Clercq, ii. 208. Tonty, in his
unpublished memoir, speaks of the joy of La Salle at the meeting. The
_Relation_, usually very accurate, says erroneously, that Tonty had gone
to Fort Frontenac. La Forest had gone thither not long before La Salle's
arrival.]

Without loss of time, they embarked together for Fort Frontenac, paddled
their canoes a thousand miles, and safely reached their destination. Here,
in this third beginning of his disastrous enterprise, La Salle found
himself beset with embarrassments. Not only was he burdened with the
fruitless costs of his two former efforts, but the heavy debts which he