When the _Griffon_ had crossed the lake, the men saw before them wide marshes through which the swift-moving river had many a winding channel. They had come to the St. Clair Flats, a fan-shaped delta of seven channels, on which has been built to-day a popular summer resort. They set to work sounding one passage after another, only to find them shallow and almost barred with shoals. But at last they came upon an excellent channel about a league broad, with no sands and a depth everywhere of from three to eight fathoms of water through which the vessel sailed easily toward Lake Huron. At the mouth of the river, however, they were forced to drop anchor and remain for several days. A north wind had been blowing, driving the water of the three upper lakes into the strait. This had increased so much the usual force of the current that it was as violent as that of the Niagara, and entirely impassable for a vessel like the _Griffon_. Even when the wind turned southerly, La Salle could make no headway against this current until he sent ashore a dozen men who hauled and towed the vessel along the beach for half an hour, dragging her out of the narrow mouth of the channel into the wave-tossed waters of the lake. Once more all returned “thanks to the Almighty for their happy navigation,” and set sail on the 23rd of August on Lake Huron. The favoring winds soon died down, and La Salle lay becalmed for two days among the islands of Thunder Bay. Starting from there at noon on his way northward, he was caught in a furious westerly gale. For hours the little vessel tossed and drifted over the raging waters of the lake, lying at the mercy of wind and wave. Even La Salle gave up hope and told his men to prepare for death. All fell on their knees except the pilot, who devoted the time instead to cursing and swearing against his employer for having brought him there to perish in a “nasty lake, and lose the glory he had acquired by long and happy navigations on the ocean.” But Pilot Lucas and his brave commander were not destined to perish in that storm. Hennepin vowed an altar to St. Anthony of Padua, prudently agreeing to set it up in Louisiana if they should reach there. The storm-clouds rolled away, the waters grew quiet, and the sun shone out on the wooded cliffs of the islands of Bois Blanc and Mackinac, and the dense forests of Michigan. The vessel anchored behind the point of St. Ignace, in the harbor of Michilimackinac, the settlement which was at once the centre of Jesuit missions and of Indian traders.