In a bark canoe laden with their arms, personal belongings, and some packs of merchandise which served for money between whites and Indians, the little party set out, after priestly benediction, on February 28, 1680. They dropped down the Illinois to its mouth, and took their toilsome way against the current of the Mississippi. On April 11, when near the southern line of Minnesota, they encountered a fleet of thirty-three canoes carrying a war-party intent on mischief to certain Illinois tribes. The savages frightened but did not harm the Frenchmen. Accault was able to inform them that the Illinois Indians had crossed the river to hunt. They therefore turned homewards, taking the explorers with them. At the end of the month the flotilla rounded up, as is believed, at the mouth of Phalen’s Creek, at St. Paul. Here they abandoned their canoes and set out overland by a trail which would naturally follow the divide between the waters of the Mississippi and the St. Croix, for their villages on Mille Lacs. On May 5 they arrived, and the Frenchmen, compelled to sell their effects to their captors, were sent to separate villages. The friar lost his portable altar and brocade vestments; otherwise they were not unkindly treated. Some weeks passed, when Hennepin and Auguelle were allowed to take a canoe and start for the mouth of the Wisconsin, where La Salle promised to send supplies. Accault preferred to join a great hunting party that was about setting out. Hennepin and his comrade left the hunters at the mouth of Rum River, and paddling with the current soon found themselves at the falls called by the Dakotas Mi-ni-i-ha-ha, the rushing water, then first seen by white men, to which he gave the name of his patron saint, Anthony of Padua. His description of the cataract and surroundings is reasonably accurate, although he greatly exaggerated its height. No rival has claimed the credit of their discovery. Passing on down the river, they met an Indian who informed them that the hunting party was not far away, on some tributary. They abandoned their lonesome journey and joined the hunters, who, the hunt over, were about returning to their villages.