[Illustration: REMNANTS OF WALLS OF FORT ST. MARY ON CHRISTIAN ISLAND
IN 1891]

Ste. Marie for the time was safe. The invaders had gone; but the blow
had crushed forever the prowess of the Huron nation. The remaining
towns had thought for nothing but flight. {92} Town after town was
forsaken and burned in the summer of 1649, the corn harvest left
standing in the fields, while the panic-stricken people put out in
their canoes to take refuge on the islands of Georgian Bay. Ste. Marie
on the Wye alone remained, and the reason for its existence was
vanishing like winter snow before summer sun, for its people fled . . .
fled . . . fled . . . daily fled to the pink granite islands of the
lake. The Hurons begged the Jesuits to accompany them, and there was
nothing else for Ragueneau to do. Ste. Marie was stripped, the stock
slain for food. Then the buildings were set on fire. June 14, just as
the sunset bathed water and sky in seas of gold, the priest led his
homeless people down to the lake as Moses of old led the children of
Israel. Oars and sweeps, Georgian Bay calm as glass, they rafted
slowly out to the Christian Islands,--Faith, Hope, and Charity,--which
tourists can still see from passing steamers, a long wooded line beyond
the white water-fret of the wind-swept reefs. The island known on the
map as Charity, or St. Joseph, was heavily wooded. Here the refugees
found their haven, and the French soldiers cleared the ground {93} for
a stone fort of walled masonry,--the islands offering little else than
stone and timber, though the fishing has not failed to this day.

[Illustration: MAP OF THE GREAT LAKES Showing the territory of the
Jesuit Huron missions]

By autumn the walled fort was complete, but some eight thousand
refugees had gathered to the island. Such numbers could not subsist on
Georgian Bay in summer. In winter their presence meant starvation, and
before the spring of 1650 half had perished. Of the survivors, many
had fed on the bodies of the dead. No help had come from Quebec for
almost three years. The clothing of the priests had long since worn to
shreds. Ragueneau and his helpers were now dressed in skins like the
Indians, and reduced to a diet of nuts and smoked fish.

With warm weather came sickness. And also came bands of raiding
Iroquois striking terror to the Tobacco Indians. Among them, too,
perished Jesuit priests, martyrs to the faith. Did some of the Hurons
venture from the