Thence down the river they went for three hundred miles to the Taensas Indians, who lived in large square houses built of mud and straw with a high roof of cane and surrounding a large open court. Soon they came to the mouth or delta of the Mississippi, and going in different parties down the channels they joined together on an island at the mouth, erected a column, and took possession of all Louisiana from the mouth of the Ohio to the Gulf of Mexico. And so from Lake Erie west and north to the Rocky Mountains and the Canadian North West, and south from Lake Erie to the Gulf, and west to the Rio Grande was added to the New France whose capital was at the narrowing of the stream of the mighty St. Lawrence. La Salle had realized his dream, and against obstacles which would have staggered any ordinary man; and New France now extended from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico. They retraced their way up the Mississippi and after a long illness he reached Mackinac, whither he had sent Tonty to announce their success. It was too late to go to Quebec, and there was a rumour that the Iroquois were on the warpath, so La Salle and Tonty returned to the Illinois and spent the winter of 1682-3 in fortifying Starved Rock, which was to be one of the chain of forts to hold the new country. But in the meantime Frontenac was recalled, the forward policy entirely changed, and La Salle’s own possessions at Fort Frontenac seized. This seemed the cap stone of all his troubles, and he passed eastward in the fall of 1683, reached Quebec in November, and finding his case hopeless, sailed for France to lay his case personally before his King. He was a wonderful man. His vessels had been wrecked, his goods lost, his possessions confiscated. He had been deserted by his men, been robbed, and yet he retained that faith in himself and in his cause, and so impressed the King that he was given command of an expedition to sail for the mouths of the Mississippi to drive the Spaniards out of North America. They landed somewhere near where Galveston, Texas, now stands, having missed the Mississippi. Again through wrecks and desertion La Salle found his numbers depleted. Added to this, dreadful sickness broke out. La Salle determined to seek a way out to the Mississippi and thence up to New France. He made repeated attempts, and at last, deserted by nearly all his men who despaired of ever seeing home again, he was shot by one of his own followers on March 18th, 1687. Thus perished one of the most remarkable men in our history, the first great Imperialist, who had an empire in his brain, and who if he had been given backing would have made a New France greater than Old France could ever hope to be. And the map of North America would have been greatly changed!