igwams, and on their
no less strange inmates; feasted, smoked, and debated; and
shrank in consternation from the piercing report of the
arquebuse and the cannon's frightful roar.

Their savage hearts were filled with exultation on learning
the powers of their new allies. Surely these wonderful
strangers would deal destruction on their terrible foes.
Burning with thirst for vengeance, they made their faces
frightful with the war-paint, danced with frenzied gestures
round the blaze of their camp-fires, filled the air with
ear-piercing war-whoops, and at the word of command hastened
to their canoes and swept in hasty phalanx up the mighty
stream, accompanied by Champlain and eleven other white
allies.

Two days the war-party remained encamped at the place where
we have seen them, hunting, fishing, fasting, and
quarrelling, the latter so effectually that numbers of them
took to their canoes and paddled angrily away, scarce a
fourth of the original array being left for the march upon
the dreaded enemy.

It was no easy task which now lay before them. The journey
was long, the way difficult. Onward again swept the
diminutive squadron, the shallop outsailing the canoes, and
making its way up the Richelieu, Champlain being too ardent
with the fever of discovery to await the slow work of the
paddles. He had not, however, sailed far up that
forest-enclosed stream before unwelcome sounds came to his
ears. The roar of rushing and tumbling waters sounded
through the still air. And now, through the screen of
leaves, came a vision of snowy foam and the flash of leaping
waves. The Indians had lied to him. They had promised him an
unobstructed route to the great lake ahead, and here already
were rapids in his path.

How far did the obstruction extend? That must be learned.
Leaving the shallop, he set out with part of his men to
explore the wilds. It was no easy journey. Tangled vines,
dense thickets, swampy recesses crossed the way. Here lay
half-decayed tree-trunks; there heaps of rocks lifted their
mossy tops in the path. And ever, as they went, the roar of
the rapids followed, while through the foliage could be seen
the hurrying waters, pouring over rocks, stealing amid
drift-logs, eddying in chasms, and shooting in white lines
of foam along every open space.

Was this the open river of which he had been told; this the
ready route to the great lake beyond? In anger and dismay,
Champlain retraced his steps, to find, when h