Of these two companions in travel, Louis Joliet was a layman, though connected with the Jesuits by early training. Born in Canada, he had been sent by Talon to look for copper by Lake Superior, and was subsequently picked out to discover the mysterious river. Jacques Marquette was a Jesuit priest, of the earlier and purer type--a saintly man, {153} humble and single in mind, who early wore his life away in labouring for his faith. He had come out from France in 1666, and about the year 1668 was sent as a missionary to the upper lakes. On the shores of Lake Superior he ministered to Huron and Ottawa refugees at the mission of St. Esprit, where he heard from Illinois visitors of the great river, and from which point, though he knew it not, one feeder of the Mississippi, the St. Croix river, is at no great distance. A Sioux raid broke up the mission, and with the retreating Hurons he established himself at Michillimackinac, where, about 1670, he founded the mission of St. Ignace. About the same time, a mission was also established at the head of Green Bay, and from this point the two travellers, at the end of May, 1673, went forward to the Mississippi. [Sidenote: _They reach the Mississippi._] The course up the Fox river and across Lake Winnebago had already been taken by other missionaries, who had not, however, gone as far as the Wisconsin. That river was now reached, and on June 17 it carried the explorers' canoes out into the Mississippi. Down stream they went, past the mouths of the Illinois, the Missouri, and the Ohio, until they came to the confluence of the Arkansas river. There they turned, assured in their own minds that the outlet of the Mississippi was in the Gulf of Mexico--not, as had been supposed, in the Gulf of California--and fearing lest, if they lost their lives at the hands of Indians or of Spaniards,[2] the tale of their discovery might be lost also. They came back by way of the Illinois and Des Plaines rivers, made the portage to Lake Michigan, and reached Green Bay at the end of September, having made known to white men the great river of the West. [Footnote 2: The lower Mississippi had long been known to the Spaniards.] [Sidenote: _Their return._] [Sidenote: _Marquette's second journey and death._]