Scarcely pausing to rest after his long journey, Allouez advanced into the very midst of the dusky crowd, and, partly by promises of present help against the common enemy, partly by his eloquent description of the joys of eternity to the true believer, he quickly made many converts. He had, as it were, dropped down from the skies, straight from the home of the Good Spirit. He was invited to remain; and accepting the hospitality tendered to him, he founded the mission of St. Esprit, to which, in an incredibly short space of time, flocked Hurons and Ottawas, with members of distant western tribes whose very names had never before been heard of; the Potawatomies, or worshipers of the sun, the Illinois, the Sacs, the Foxes, and many another race, sinking their differences for a time in their common eagerness to share the good tidings of great joy which the white man was said to have brought. Now, for the first time, were heard whispers of the existence, not very far away from St. Esprit, of the great Father of Waters, the Mesipi, which flowed on and on forever to the south between vast prairies, where roamed the buffalo and the deer, where forests were almost unknown, and the wind swept unchecked over the tall whispering grasses. Convinced that, from all he heard, the people on the Mesipi were ripe for the reception of the Gospel, and little dreaming of the identity of this great river with that of which the mouth had been discovered by De Soto so many years before, Allouez paid a visit to Quebec in 1668 to win recruits to go forth into the prairies. As usual, there were plenty of volunteers. Three short days after his arrival at the capital he was on his way back to Chagwamegan, accompanied by Louis Nicholas, and followed by Claude Dablon and James Marquette, who, as a preliminary step for the work before them, founded the mission of St. Mary’s on the Falls, between Lakes Superior and Huron, close to the spot where the Chippewayans had had their first interview with a white man a few years previously.