I spent the next day in examining these localities, and was fully confirmed in my conclusions. Mr. Clark's tenant showed me the spot where the human bones were ploughed up. It was no doubt the graveyard violated by the Iroquois. The Illinois returned to the village after their defeat, and long continued to occupy it. The scattered bones were probably collected and restored to their place of burial. CHAPTER XVIII. 1680. THE ADVENTURES OF HENNEPIN. HENNEPIN AN IMPOSTOR.--HIS PRETENDED DISCOVERY.--HIS ACTUAL DISCOVERY.--CAPTURED BY THE SIOUX.--THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI. It was on the last day of the winter that preceded the invasion of the Iroquois, that Father Hennepin, with his two companions, Accau and Du Gay, had set out from Fort Crevecoeur to explore the Illinois to its mouth. It appears from his own later statements, as well as from those of Tonty, that more than this was expected of him, and that La Salle had instructed him to explore, not alone the Illinois, but also the Upper Mississippi. That he actually did so, there is no reasonable doubt; and, could he have contented himself with telling the truth, his name would have stood high as a bold and vigorous discoverer. But his vicious attempts to malign his commander, and plunder him of his laurels, have wrapped his genuine merit in a cloud. Hennepin's first book was published soon after his return from his travels, and while La Salle was still alive. In it, he relates the accomplishment of the instructions given him, without the smallest intimation that he did more, [Footnote: _Description de la Louisiane, nouvellement decouverte, Paris_, 1683.] Fourteen years after, when La Salle was dead, he published another edition of his travels, [Footnote: _Nouvelle Decouverte d'un tres grand Pays situe dans l'Amerique, Utrecht_, 1697] in which he advanced a new and surprising pretension. Reasons connected with his personal safety, he declares, before compelled him to remain silent; but a time at length has come when the truth must be revealed. And he proceeds to affirm that, before ascending the Mississippi, he, with his two men, explored its whole course from the Illinois to the sea, thus anticipating the discovery which forms the crowning laurel of La Salle.