lled the Algonquins to rally and rush for the boats. The French
embarked as best they could. The Indians swam and paddled for the
opposite shore of the river. Here, in the dark, hurried council was
taken. The most of the baggage had been lost. The Indians refused to
help either the Jesuits or the French, and it was impossible for the
white _voyageurs_ to keep up the pace in the dash across an unknown
_portage_ through the dark. The French adventurers turned back for
Montreal. Of the white men, Radisson and Groseillers alone went on.

Frightened into their senses by the encounter, the Algonquins now
travelled only at night till they were far beyond range of the
Iroquois. All day the fugitive band lay hidden in the woods. They
could not hunt, lest Mohawk spies might hear the gunshots. Provisions
dwindled. In a short time the food consisted of _tripe de roche_--a
greenish moss boiled into a soup--and the few fish that might be caught
during hurried nightly launch or morning landing. Sometimes they hid
in a berry patch, when the fruit was gathered and boiled, but
camp-fires were stamped out and covered. Turning westward, they
crossed the barren region of iron-capped rocks and dwarf growth between
the Upper Ottawa and the Great Lakes. Now they were farther from the
Iroquois, and staved off famine by shooting an occasional bear in the
berry patches. For a thousand miles they had travelled against stream,
carrying their boats across sixty _portages_. Now they glided with the
current westward to Lake Nipissing. On the lake, the Upper Indians
always _cached_ provisions. Fish, otter, and beaver were plentiful;
but again they refrained from using firearms, for Iroquois footprints
had been found on the sand.

From Lake Nipissing they passed to Lake Huron, where the fleet divided.
Radisson and Groseillers went with the Indians, who crossed Lake Huron
for Green Bay on Lake Michigan. The birch canoes could not venture
across the lake in storms; so the boats rounded southward, keeping
along the shore of Georgian Bay. Cedar forests clustered down the
sandy reaches of the lake. Rivers dark as cathedral aisles rolled
their brown tides through the woods to the blue waters of Lake Huron.
At one point Groseillers recognized the site of the ruined Jesuit
missions. The Indians waited the chance of a fair day, and paddled
over to the straits at the entrance to Lake Michigan. At Manitoulin
Island were Huron refugees, amon