When they reached the site of the populous Illinois town, the place was desolate, not a human being in sight. Only heaps of ashes and charred poles and stakes showed where the lodges had stood. The whole meadow was blackened by fire. Hundreds of wolves skulked about the burial ground of the village. The ground was strewn with broken bones and mangled corpses. Every grave had been rifled, and the bodies had been thrown down from the scaffolds where many of them had been placed. It was evident what had happened. The Iroquois had made a descent, in some way had missed their prey, and had wreaked their vengeance on the dead. But where were Tonty and his men? There was no sign of their having been killed. Neither had any trace been observed of their passing up the river. It must be that they had escaped down the river with the Illinois in their flight. La Salle promptly determined what to do. Leaving a part of his men, he hid his baggage and started down the stream with a few trusty men carrying little besides their arms. When they reached the ruins of Fort Crevecoeur, they found the vessel on the stocks untouched. {245} La Salle pushed on down to the mouth of the river, without finding a trace of his missing countrymen. Now the Great Water rolled before him. Once he had dreamed night and day of seeing it. But to see it under such circumstances as these,--what a mockery of his hopes! The one thought on his mind was to find and rescue Tonty. There was no sign of him here. To go further would have been useless, and La Salle turned back, paddling day and night, and rejoined his men whom he had left. Then all started northward. On their way down they had followed the Kankakee. Now they took the Des Plaines route. Near a bark cabin a bit of wood that had been cut with a saw showed that Tonty and his men had gone this way. If they had but left at the fork of the stream some sign of their passage, La Salle's party would have seen it on their way down, and all this anxiety would have been obviated. With his mind relieved, La Salle was glad to rest for a while at his little Fort Miami, situated at the mouth of the St. Joseph River. Tonty had passed through perilous straits. The desertion of the larger part of his men left him with but three fighting men and two friars. {246} Next came a tremendous war-party of Iroquois to attack the Illinois, in the midst of whom he was. For various reasons, the Illinois suspected that the Frenchmen had brought this trouble upon them and, but for Tonty's coolness, would have mobbed and murdered the little handful of white men. When the Iroquois began the attack, Tonty went among them, at the peril of his life, actually receiving a wound from an infuriated young warrior, and succeeded in stopping the fighting by telling the Iroquois that the Illinois numbered twelve hundred, and that there were sixty armed Frenchmen, ready to back them.