In the following summer, when the Sioux went on their annual buffalo hunt, they took the three Frenchmen along with them. This was the prisoners' opportunity for regaining their liberty, and they hastened to make use of it. La Salle had promised to send word of himself to them at the mouth of the Wisconsin, and they knew he would not fail them. Telling the Sioux their friends were coming, loaded with gifts, the greedy Sioux were easily induced to let Hennepin and one other go down the river to meet them alone and unguarded. One Frenchman remained behind with the Sioux as a hostage for the others.
The two whites began their descent of the river, carrying their canoe round the Falls of St. Anthony,[5] to which Father Hennepin gave this name, till, after many adventures, Lake Pepin[6] was reached.
To their consternation, the travellers were overtaken at this point by a party of Sioux who had followed their prisoners so closely, as hardly to lose sight of them, and now pushed on ahead to the Wisconsin. Finding neither traders[7] nor goods there, as they had been led to expect, the Sioux paddled back again in bad humor to the place where the whites had remained. After being soundly rated for the cheat they had practised, the unlucky whites were forced to turn about and go back again as they came.
After some longer stay among the Sioux, the captives were found by some French traders who had made their way from Lake Superior, through the Sioux country, to the Mississippi. Hearing of the three white men, while on the way, these traders had kept on from village to village, till they reached the one in which Hennepin and his companions were detained, and ransomed them out of the hands of the savages.
At the head of the rescuing party was one Du Lhut, or Duluth, for whom the city of Duluth is named, as Lake Pepin is also said to have been named for another of this party. Thus, in St. Anthony's Falls, Lake Pepin, and Duluth we have a group of names commemorating the men of La Salle's exploring party, as well as the exploration itself.
All the Frenchmen now returned to the Sioux villages at Mille Lac together.
They finally made their way back to the French settlements by the Wisconsin and Green Bay route, as Marquette had done before them, and the Sioux[8] also for many generations had travelled to the great lake.