On the following day, Marquette and his people were escorted, by the very men who had been so eager for their blood, to the village of Arkansea, and here, having learned that the Father of Waters pursued its course in a south-easterly direction to the Gulf of Mexico, our hero resolved to turn back. The return voyage up the Mississippi was little more than a repetition of the descent, till its junction with the Illinois was reached, when the canoes were embarked on the waters of the latter river, and a new land, consisting chiefly of extensive and fertile prairies, was entered. The men of Eastern Illinois showed themselves true brethren of the members of their tribe who had so hospitably received the French on the western side of the great river, and the explorers, after resisting all entreaties to take up their abode on the Illinois, were escorted in a north-easterly direction to Lake Michigan by way of Chicago, and arrived safely on the northern shores of Lake Michigan, after an absence of about two years. A little later, Marquette went as a missionary to northern Illinois; and after converting many of the Indians about Chicago to the faith, he started for north-eastern Michigan, intending to found a mission there. Having set up an altar on the little river bearing his name, he asked his guides to leave him alone for a short time, and when they returned to seek him, he was found dead. He was buried in the sand near the town called after him, and is still revered by the natives and settlers of the Lake districts, many of whom are said to invoke the aid of St. Marquette when in danger in their frail canoes. While Marquette’s career was thus cut short before he had even begun the realization of his dream of ascending the Missouri, the work he had commenced on the Mississippi was carried on by a man of a very different character. On his way back to Quebec, from his trip with Marquette, Joliet became acquainted with Robert Cavalier de la Salle, Governor of Frontenac, now Kingston, a French outpost on Lake Ontario, who had already made himself thoroughly acquainted with the immediate neighborhood. Fired by what he heard from Joliet, La Salle resolved to obtain permission from the King of France to go down the Mississippi, and open a trade in buffalo-hides with the Indians of the South. He hastened to France, and returned the same year, accompanied by an Italian soldier named Tonti, and provided with full powers from his sovereign.