for the navigation of the Mississippi. Bitter experience had taught him
the difficulty of the attempt, and he resolved to trust to his canoes
alone. They embarked again, floating prosperously down between the
leafless forests that flanked the tranquil river; till, on the sixth of
February, they issued forth on the majestic bosom of the Mississippi.
Here, for the time, their progress was stopped; for the river was full of
floating ice. La Salle's Indians, too, had lagged behind; but, within a
week, all had arrived, the navigation was once more free, and they resumed
their course. Towards evening, they saw on their right the mouth of a
great river; and the clear current was invaded by the headlong torrent of
the Missouri, opaque with mud. They built their camp fires in the
neighboring forest; and, at daylight, embarking anew on the dark and
mighty stream, drifted swiftly down towards unknown destinies. They passed
a deserted town of the Tamaroas; saw, three days after, the mouth of the
Ohio; [Footnote: Called by Membre the Ouabache (Wabash).] and, gliding by
the wastes of bordering swamp, landed, on the twenty-fourth of February,
near the Third Chickasaw Bluffs. [Footnote: La Salle, _Relation de la
Decouverte de I'Embouchure, etc._; Thomassy, 10 Membre gives the same
date; but the _Proces Verbal_ makes it the twenty-sixth.] They encamped,
and the hunters went out for game. All returned, excepting Pierre
Prudhomme; and, as the others had seen fresh tracks of Indians, La Salle
feared that he was killed. While some of his followers built a small
stockade fort on a high bluff [Footnote: Gravier, in his letter of 16 Feb.
1701, says that he encamped near a "great bluff of stone, called Fort
Prudhomme, because M. de la Salle, going on his discovery, entrenched
himself here with his party, fearing that Prudhomme, who had lost himself
in the woods, had been killed by the Indians, and that he himself would be
attacked."] by the river, others ranged the woods in pursuit of the
missing hunter. After six days of ceaseless and fruitless search, they met
two Chickasaw Indians in the forest; and, through them, La Salle sent