La Salle and the discovery of the great West - North Central ...

1679.] RIVALS AND ENEMIES. 155their orders, squandered the goods intrusted to them,or used them in trading on their own account.Salle found four of them at Michilimackinac.LaThesehe arrested, and sent Tonty to the Falls of Ste.Marie, where two others were captured, with theirplunder. The rest were in the woods, and it wasuseless to pursue them.Anxious and troubled as to the condition of hisaffairs in Canada, La Salle had meant, after seeinghis party safe at Michilimackinac, to leave Tonty toconduct it to the Illinois, while he himself returnedto the colony. But Tonty was still at Ste. Marie,and he had none to trust but himself. Therefore,he resolved at all risks to remain with his men;"for," he says, "I judged my presence absolutelynecessary to retain such ofthem as were left me, andprevent them from being enticed away during thewinter."Moreover, he thought that he had detectedan intrigue of his enemies to hound on the Iroquoisagainst the Illinois, in order to defeat his plan byinvolving him in the war.Early in September he set sail again, and passingwestward into Lake Michigan, 1 cast anchor near oneof the islands at the entrance of Green Bay. Here,for once, he found a friend in the person of aPottawattamie chief,who had been so wrought upon1Then usually known as Lac des Illinois, because it gave accessto the country of the tribes so called. Three years before, Allouezgave it the name of Lac St. Joseph, by which it is often designatedby the early writers* Membre, Douay, and others, call it LacDauphin.