the half light Champlain could see that the
Iroquois were working like beavers erecting a barricade of logs. The
assailants kept to their canoes under cover of bull-hide shields till
daylight, when Champlain buckled on his armor--breastplate, helmet,
thigh pieces--and landing, advanced. There were not less than two
hundred Iroquois. Outnumbering the Hurons three times over, they
uttered a jubilant whoop and {48} came on at a rush. Champlain and his
two white men took aim. The foremost chiefs dropped in their tracks.
Terrified by "the sticks that thundered and spat fire," the Iroquois
fell back in amaze, halted, then fled. The victory was complete; but
it left as a legacy to New France the undying enmity of the Iroquois.

When Champlain came out from France in 1610, he would have repeated the
raid; but a fight with invading Iroquois at the mouth of the Richelieu
delayed him, and the expiration of De Monts' monopoly took him back to
France.

In 1611 trade was free to all comers. Fur traders flocked to the St.
Lawrence like birds of passage. The only way to secure furs for De
Monts was to go higher up the river beyond Quebec; and ascending to
Montreal, Champlain built a factory called Place Royale, with a wall of
bricks to resist the ice jam. This was the third French fort Champlain
helped to found in Canada.

Presently, on his tracks to Montreal, came a flock of free traders.
When the Hurons come shooting down the foamy rapids--here, a pole-shove
to avoid splitting canoes on a rock in mid-rush; there, a dexterous
whirl from the trough of a back wash--the fur traders fire off their
guns in welcome. The Hurons are suspicious. What means it, these
white men, coming in such numbers, firing off their "sticks that
thunder"? At midnight they come stealthily to Champlain's lodge to
complain. Peltries and canoes, the Indians transfer themselves above
the rapids, and later conduct Champlain down those same white
whirlpools to the uneasy amaze of the explorer.

It is clear to Champlain he must obtain royal patronage to stem the
boldness of these free traders. In France he obtains the favor of the
Bourbons; and he obtains it more generously because the world of Paris
has gone agog about a fabulous tale that sets the court by the ears.
From the first Champlain has encouraged young Frenchmen to winter with
the Indian hunters and learn the languages. Brule is with them now.
Nicholas Vignau has just come back from t