This murder of his son was the most bitter blow that had yet fallen upon La Vérendrye. But he betrayed no sign of weakness. Not even the loss of his son was sufficient to turn him back from his search for the Western Sea. 'I have lost,' he writes simply to Maurepas, 'my son, the reverend Father, and my Frenchmen, misfortunes which I shall lament all my life.' Some comfort remained. The great explorer still had three sons, ready and willing like himself to sacrifice their lives for the glory of New France. [1] See _The 'Adventurers of England' on Hudson Bay_, pages 73-88. {44} CHAPTER III ACROSS THE PLAINS For several years La Vérendrye had been hearing wonderful accounts of a tribe of Indians in the West who were known as the Mandans. Wherever he went, among the Chippewas, the Crees, or the Assiniboines, some one was sure to speak of the Mandans, and the stories grew more and more marvellous. La Vérendrye knew that Indians were very much inclined to exaggerate. They would never spoil a good story by limiting it to what they knew to be true. They liked a joke as well as other people; and, when they found that the white men who visited them were eager to know all about the country and the tribes of the far interior, they invented all sorts of impossible stories, in which truth and fiction were so mingled that at length the explorers did not know what to believe. Much that was told him by the Indians concerning the Mandans La Vérendrye knew {45} could not possibly be true; he thought that some of their stories were probably correct. The Indians said that the Mandans were white like himself, that they dressed like Europeans, wore armour, had horses and cattle, cultivated the ground, and lived in fortified towns. Their home was described as being far towards the setting sun, on a great river that flowed into the ocean. La Vérendrye knew that the Spaniards had made settlements on the western coast of America, and he thought that the mysterious strangers might perhaps be Spaniards. At any rate, they seemed to be white men, and, if the Indian stories were even partially true, they would be able to show him that way to the great water which it was the ambition of his life to find. His resolve, therefore, was inevitable. He would visit these white strangers, whoever they might be; and he had great hopes that they would be able to guide him to the object of his quest.