And, seeing no other way, La Salle
resolved to go back to Fort Frontenac to get them, leaving Tonty
meanwhile to look after the building of the ship.
It was March when La Salle set out on his tremendous walk of a
thousand miles. With him he took a faithful Indians guide and four
Frenchmen. And seldom have men endured a journey more terrible.
The spring sun was just beginning to thaw the ice and snow
of winter, so that the prairies were turned to marshes into which
the travelers sank knee deep. The forests were pathless thickets
through which they had to force a way with axe and hatchet. As a
pathway the rivers were useless to them, for the ice was so thin
that it would not bear their weight. And later when it thawed and
broke up they still could not use their canoes lest they should be
shattered by the floating masses of ice.
All day long they toiled knee deep in mud and half-melted snow,
laden with baggage, guns and ammunition. At night they lay down
without shelter of any kind. They were often hungry, they suffered
constantly both from cold and heat. For at noon the sun beat down
upon them fiercely, and at night the frost was so bitter that the
blankets in which they lay wrapped were frozen stiff.
The hardships of the journey were so tremendous that the marvel
is that any one lived to tell of them. Indeed, one by one the men
fell ill, and when at length after three months of pain and peril
they arrived at their journey's end only La Salle had strength or
courage left.
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