keep their hands off his Indians or take all consequences. He had, he said, asked them to come and meet him at Fort Frontenac. Now he added, if the Iroquois wished {113} to see him, they would have to come to Montreal. His sternness and the fear of his displeasure overcame the braves of the Five Nations. Changing their tone, they sent an embassy to Montreal, promising the peace which they hated. Scarcely had they done so than Frontenac the Lion was replaced by La Barre, the Lamb. Like every one else, La Salle, on learning the evil news, saw the folly and danger of the change. To France straightway he sailed, where the King heaped him with honours, and, seizing the opportunity, he unfolded a project for establishing a French colony in Louisiana. Ships were freely given him and many soldiers and supplies to reach the Gulf of Mexico by sea. But La Salle, though he never would admit the fact, was no sailor. His navigation was fatally at fault; he wholly missed his intended destination, the mouth of the Mississippi, sailing hundreds of miles beyond. He landed, and through the forests and swamps, and stricken with fever, he led his colonists. After much miserable wandering, in which most of the little army perished, his followers mutinied. La Salle was murdered and his corpse flung to the jackals and vultures. Far more successful were the adventures of the Chevalier de Troyes. The Chevalier de Troyes was a Canadian nobleman who had long fought for his king, and had seen service on many of the bloody battlefields in Europe. Now, when age began to creep upon him, and scars lined his cheek and brow, he had retired to his estate on the banks of the silvery St. Lawrence, to spend the rest of his days {114} in peace and the companionship of his books. In his retirement the news of the increasing power and wealth of the Hudson's Bay Company reached him; it told him that unless this power was checked the prosperity of the French fur-hunters and fur-traders would be utterly crushed. An idea flashed across the brain of the Chevalier de Troyes, who believed he now saw an opportunity of winning enduring distinction, to rival, and may be surpass, the exploits of Champlain, La Salle, and the other hero-pioneers of New France.