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

;166 LA SALLE ON THE ILLINOIS [lawtheir invisible proprietor that he was about to sleepin his bed; piled a barricade of bushes around thespot, rekindled the dying fire, warmed his benumbedhands, stretched himself on the dried grass,and sleptundisturbed till morning.The Mohegan had rejoined the party before LaSalle's return, and with his aid the portage was soonfound. Here the party encamped. La Salle, whowas excessively fatigued, occupied, together withHennepin, a wigwam covered in the Indian mannerwith mats of reeds.The cold forced them to kindlea fire,which before daybreak set the mats in a blazeand the two sleepersalong with their hut.narrowly escaped being burnedIn the morning, the party shouldered their canoesand baggage and began their march for the sourcesof the river Illinois, some five miles distant. Aroundthem stretched a desolate plain, half-covered withsnow and strewn with the skulls and bones of buffalo;while, on its farthest verge, they could see the lodgesof the Miami Indians, who had made this placetheirabode. As they filed on their way, a man namedDuplessis, bearing a grudge against La Salle, whowalked just before him, raised his gun to shoot himthrough the back,comrades.but was prevented by one of hisThey soon reached a spot where the oozy,saturated soil quaked beneath their tread. Allaround were clumps of alder-bushes, tufts of rankgrass, and pools of glistening water. In the midsta dark and lazy current, which a tall man might