one. All
among them that had strength to move had glided away through the gloom
with the silence of shadows, passed the camps of their sleeping enemies,
and reached a point of land projecting into the river opposite the end
of Isle au Cochon, and a few miles above the French fort. Here, knowing
that they would be pursued, they barricaded themselves with trunks and
branches of trees. When the astonished allies discovered their escape,
they hastily followed their trail, accompanied by some of the French,
led by Vincennes. In their eagerness they ran upon the barricade before
seeing it, and were met by a fire that killed and wounded twenty of
them. There was no alternative but to forego their revenge and abandon
the field, or begin another siege. Encouraged by Dubuisson, they built
their wigwams on the new scene of operations; and, being supplied by the
French with axes, mattocks, and two swivels, they made a wall of logs
opposite the barricade, from which they galled the defenders with a
close and deadly fire. The Mississagas and Ojibwas, who had lately
arrived, fished and hunted for the allies, while the French furnished
them with powder, ball, tobacco, Indian corn, and kettles. The enemy
fought desperately for four days, and then, in utter exhaustion,
surrendered at discretion.[285]

The women and children were divided among the victorious hordes, and
adopted or enslaved. To the men no quarter was given. "Our Indians
amused themselves," writes Dubuisson, "with shooting four or five of
them every day." Here, however, another surprise awaited the conquerors
and abridged their recreation, for about a hundred of these intrepid
warriors contrived to make their escape, and among them was the great
war-chief Pemoussa.

The Outagamies were crippled, but not disabled, for but a part of the
tribe was involved in this bloody affair. The rest were wrought to fury
by the fate of their kinsmen, and for many years they remained thorns in
the sides of the French.

There is a disposition to assume that events like that just recounted
were a consequence of the contact of white men with red; but the
primitive Indian was quite able to enact such tragedies without the help
of Europeans. Before French or English influence had been felt in the
interior of the continent, a great part of North America was the
frequent witness of scenes still more lurid in coloring, and on a larger
scale of horror. In the first half of the seventeenth century