ear. Many an evening he had
spent with Major d'Orvilliers, at Fort Frontenac, in talking over the
recent years of history into which their two names and their two lives
had gone so deeply. Until his recall to France in 1682, Governor
Frontenac had been for ten years building up in the Iroquois heart a
fear and awe of Onontio, the Great Father, at Quebec. D'Orvilliers
knew that period the better, for Menard had not come over (from the
little town of his birth, in Picardy) until Frontenac's policy was
well established. But Menard had lived hard and rapidly during his
first years in the province, and he was a stern-faced young soldier
when he stood on the wharf, hat in hand and sword to chin, watching
New France's greatest governor sitting erect in the boat that bore him
away from his own. Menard had been initiated by a long captivity among
the Onondagas, and had won his first commission by gallant action
under the Governor's eye.

In those days no insult went unpunished; no tribe failed twice in its
obligations. The circle of French influence was firmly extended around
the haunts of the Iroquois in New York and along the Ohio. From
Frontenac, on Lake Ontario, north to Hudson's Bay, was French land. To
the westward, along the Ottawa River, and skirting the north shore of
Lake Huron to Michillimackinac and Green Bay, were the strong French
allies, the Hurons, Ottawas, Nipissings, Kiskagons, Sacs, Foxes, and
Mascoutins. Down at the lower end of Lake Michigan, at the Chicagou
and St. Joseph portages, were the Miamis; and farther still, the
Illinois, whom the Sieur de la Salle and Henri de Tonty had drawn
close under the arm of New France.

This chain of allies, with Du Luth's fort at Detroit and a partial
control over Niagara, had given New France nearly all the fur trade of
the Great Lakes. The English Governor Dongan, of New York, dared not
to fight openly for it, but he armed the Iroquois and set them against
the French. Menard had laughed when the word came, in 1684, from
Father de Lamberville, whose influence worked so far toward keeping
the Iroquois quiet, that Dongan had pompously set up the arms of his
king in each Iroquois village, even dating them back a year to make
his claim the more secure. Every old soldier knew that more than
decrees and coats of arms were needed to win the Five Nations.

When La Barre succeeded Frontenac, lacking the tact and firmness which
had established Frontenac's name among foes and al