The effect of this timely fabrication was magical. The Iroquois at once were for peace and employed Tonty to arrange a truce. That night the Illinois slipped away down the river. The Iroquois followed them, on the opposite shore, watching for an opportunity to attack. This did not offer itself, but they actually drove the Illinois out of their own country, after perpetrating a butchery of women and children. Meanwhile they had discovered Tonty's deception and were enraged. He had robbed them of a prey for which they had marched hundreds of miles. Only a wholesome fear of Count {247} Frontenac, of whom the Indians stood in great awe, kept them from falling on the little band. As it was, matters looked so stormy that the Frenchmen stood on the watch all night, expecting an attack. At daybreak the chiefs bade them begone. Accordingly they embarked in a leaky canoe and started up the river. At their first stop Father Ribourde strolled away. When he did not reappear his comrades became alarmed. Tonty and one of the men went in search of him. They followed his tracks until they came to the trail of a band of Indians who had apparently carried him off. They afterward learned that a roving band of Kickapoos, one of the worst specimens of the Algonquin stock, prowling around the Iroquois camp in search of scalps, had murdered the inoffensive old man and carried his scalp in triumph to their village. Another of their party came near to meeting with an untimely end, but his ingenuity saved his life. They had abandoned their worthless canoe and were making their way on foot, living on acorns and roots, when the young Sieur de Boisrondet wandered off and was lost. The flint of his gun had dropped out, and he had no bullets. {248} But he cut a pewter porringer into slugs, discharged his gun with a fire-brand, and thus killed wild turkeys. After several days he was so fortunate as to rejoin his party. The poor fellows suffered terribly from cold and hunger while making their way along the shore of Lake Michigan, but finally found a hospitable refuge among the Pottawattamies, of Green Bay, a friendly Algonquin tribe. La Salle's heart was as much as ever set on following the Great Water to the sea. But he had learned the difficulties in the way of building a vessel and had resolved to travel by canoe.