In the circumstances La Salle saw only one possible course before him: to return to Fort Frontenac for fresh supplies and material for further progress. Leaving Tonty his trusted lieutenant in charge of Fort Crèvecoeur, he set out with an Indian guide and four Frenchmen. The hardships and disasters of the journey deprived him of his companions, one by one, but he pressed on alone. "During sixty-five days he had toiled almost incessantly, travelling about a thousand miles through a country beset with every form of peril and obstruction.... In him an unconquerable mind held at its service a frame of iron, and taxed it to its utmost endurance. The pioneer of Western pioneers was no rude son of toil, but a man of thought, trained amid arts and letters."[13] This first chapter of his reverses, however, was not yet completed; for even while La Salle was getting succour for his company on the Illinois, a letter arrived from Tonty telling him of the mutiny of the garrison and the wilful destruction of Fort Crèvecoeur with all it held. The calamitous news would have killed the spirit of any one less courageous than La Salle; but the bold explorer, whose whole life was a long grapple with adversity, prepared with all haste to return to the rescue of Tonty, who, he hoped forlornly, had survived the mutinous treachery. By the 10th of August he was ready, and with a new outfit and twenty-five men he set out once more for the distant Illinois. [Footnote 13: Parkman, _La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West_, chap. xiv.] After three months of toil and hardship he came again to Fort Crèvecoeur. Anxiety for Tonty and his faithful companions had consumed him all the way. Yet he was unprepared for the shocking sight that met his eyes. The once populous town of the Illinois was now a valley of dry bones; the bodies of women and children strewed the plain, and the charred trophies of Illinois warriors hung tragically upon blackened stakes. Such were the terrible marks of an Iroquois visitation. Wolves ran howling away as the Frenchmen drew near, and voracious buzzards wheeled overhead. Anxiously La Salle sought among the revolting remnants for any sign of Tonty; but none was to be found, and although the relief expedition continued for weeks and months to search for their missing comrades, it was spring before the explorer heard with joy that his lieutenant had found refuge among the Pottawattamies. Meanwhile, his resources for the Mississippi expedition had been again dissipated, and once more he returned to Fort Frontenac for fresh supplies.