Pathfinders of the West | Page 8

the evening meal was boiling, young warriors dressed and combed the Frenchman's hair after the manner of braves. They daubed his cheeks with war-paint; and when they saw that their rancid meats turned him faint, they boiled meat in clean water and gave him meal browned on burning sand.[6] He did not struggle to escape, so he was now untied. That night he slept between two warriors under a common blanket, through which he counted the stars. For fifty years his home was to be under the stars. It is typically Radisson when he could add: "I slept a sound sleep; for they wakened me upon the breaking of the day." In the morning they embarked in thirty-seven canoes, two Indians in each boat, with Radisson tied to the cross-bar of one, the scalps lying at his feet. Spreading out on the river, they beat their paddles on the gunwales of the canoes, shot off guns, and uttered the shrill war-cry--"Ah-oh! Ah-oh! Ah-oh!" [7] Lest this were not sufficient defiance to the penned-up fort on the river bank, the chief stood up in his canoe, signalled silence, and gave three shouts. At once the whole company answered till the hills rang; and out swung the fleet of canoes with more shouting and singing and firing of guns, each paddle-stroke sounding the death knell to the young Frenchman's hopes.
By sunset they were among the islands at the mouth of the Richelieu, where muskrats scuttled through the rushes and wild-fowl clouded the air. The south shore of Lake St. Peter was heavily forested; the north, shallow. The lake was flooded with spring thaw, and the Mohawks could scarcely find camping-ground among the islands. The young prisoner was deathly sick from the rank food that he had eaten and heart-sick from the widening distance between himself and Three Rivers. Still, they treated him kindly, saying, "Chagon! Chagon!--Be merry! Cheer up!" The fourth day up the Richelieu, he was embarked without being fastened to the cross-bar, and he was given a paddle. Fresh to the work, Radisson made a labor of his oar. The Iroquois took the paddle and taught him how to give the light, deft, feather strokes of the Indian canoeman. On the river they met another band of warriors, and the prisoner was compelled to show himself a trophy of victory and to sing songs for his captors. That evening the united bands kindled an enormous campfire and with the scalps of the dead flaunting from spear heads danced the scalp dance, re?nacting in pantomime all the episodes of the massacre to the monotonous chant-chant, of a recitative relating the foray. At the next camping-ground, Radisson's hair was shaved in front and decorated on top with the war-crest of a brave. Having translated the white man into a savage, they brought him one of the tin looking-glasses used by Indians to signal in the sun. "I, viewing myself all in a pickle," relates Radisson, "smeared with red and black, covered with such a top, . . . could not but fall in love with myself, if I had not had better instructions to shun the sin of pride."
Radisson saw that apparent compliance with the Mohawks might win him a chance to escape; so he was the first to arise in the morning, wakening the others and urging them that it was time to break camp. The stolid Indians were not to be moved by an audacious white boy. Watching the young prisoner, the keepers lay still, feigning sleep. Radisson rose. They made no protest. He wandered casually down to the water side. One can guess that the half-closed eyelids of his guards opened a trifle: was the mouse trying to get away from the cat? To the Indians' amusement, instead of trying to escape, Radisson picked up a spear and practised tossing it, till a Mohawk became so interested that he jumped up and taught the young Frenchman the proper throws. That day the Indians gave him the present of a hunting-knife. North of Lake Champlain, the river became so turbulent that they were forced to land and make a portage. Instead of lagging, as captives frequently did from very fear as they approached nearer and nearer what was almost certain to mean death-torture in the Iroquois villages--Radisson hurried over the rocks, helping the older warriors to carry their packs. At night he was the first to cut wood for the camp fire.
About a week from the time they had left Lake St. Peter, they entered Lake Champlain. On the shores of the former had been enacted the most hideous of all Indian customs--the scalp dance. On the shores of the latter was performed one of the most redeeming rites of Indian warfare. Round a small pool of water a coppice