Pathfinders of the West | Page 8

Indians yelling and howling
like so many wolves all the while till a pause was given their jubilation
by the alarm of a scout that the French and Algonquins were coming. In
a trice, the fire was out and covered. A score of young braves set off to
reconnoitre. Fifty remained at the boats; but if Radisson hoped for a
rescue, he was doomed to disappointment. The warriors returned.
Seventy Iroquois gathered round a second fire for the night. The one
predominating passion of the savage nature is bravery. Lying in
ambush, they had heard this French youth laugh at his comrades' fears.
In defiance of danger, they had seen him go hunting alone. After he had
heard an alarm, he had daringly come out to shoot at the ducks. And,
then, boy as he was, when attacked he had instantly fired back at
numerous enough enemies to have intimidated a score of grown men.
There is not the slightest doubt it was Radisson's bravery that now
saved him from the fate of his companions.
His clothes were returned. While 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, reënacting 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