d their weapons, and, clad only in their shirts, pulled
to the rescue of their comrades. They charged, and the dusky enemy
fled into the woods. Mournfully the voyagers buried their dead, while
the barbarians, from a safe distance, jibed and jeered at them. No
sooner had the little party rowed back to the ship than they saw the
Indians dig up the dead bodies and burn them. The incensed Frenchmen,
by a treacherous device, lured some of the assailants within {113}
their reach, killed them, and cut off their heads.

Then, discouraged by the savage hostility of the natives, they turned
homeward and, late in November, the most of the men sick in body and at
heart, reached Port Royal.

Thus ended disastrously Champlain's second attempt to find a lodgment
on the New England coast. But he was not a man to be disheartened by
difficulties.

Soon the snows of another winter began to fall upon Port Royal, that
lonely outpost of civilization. But let us not imagine that the little
colony was oppressed with gloom. There were jolly times around the
blazing logs in the rude hall, of winter evenings. They had abundant
food, fine fresh fish, speared through the ice of the river or taken
from the bay, with the flesh of moose, caribou, deer, beaver, and hare,
and of ducks, geese, and grouse, and they had organized an "Order of
Good Fellowship."

Each member of the company was Grand Master for one day, and it was his
duty to provide for the table and then to preside at the feast which he
had prepared. This arrangement put each one on his mettle to lay up a
good store for {114} the day when he would do the honors of the feast.
The Indian chiefs sat with the Frenchmen as their guests, while the
warriors and squaws and children squatted on the floor, awaiting the
bits of food that were sure to come to them.

In this picture we have an illustration of the ease with which the
Frenchmen always adapted themselves to the natives. It was the secret
of their success in forming alliances with the Indians, and it was in
marked contrast with the harsh conduct of the English and the ruthless
cruelty of the Spaniards. No Indian tribes inclined to the English,
except the Five Nations, and these chiefly because their sworn enemies,
the Algonquins of the St. Lawrence, were hand in glove with the French.
None came into contact with the Spaniards who did not execrate them.
But the sons of France mingled freely with the dusky children of the
soi