s Iroquois, after seeing and talking with the two, was given
presents, and started home, to carry peace talk from Onontio to the
Five Nations. The great Onontio stood ready to return the two other
prisoners, also, unharmed, if the Iroquois would agree to peace.

In about six weeks the Iroquois peace messenger came into Three Rivers
with two Mohawk chiefs to represent the Mohawk nation.

Now there was much ceremony, of speeches and feasts, not only by the
French of the post, but also by the Algonkins and the Hurons. The
governor came up. In a grand peace council Chief Kiosaton, the head
ambassador, made a long address. After each promise of good-will he
passed out a broad belt of wampum, until the line upon which the belts
were hung was sagging with more than fifteen.

By these beaded belts the promises were sealed.

Piskaret was here. It was necessary for him to give a present that
should "wipe out the memory of the Iroquois blood he had shed," and
this he did.

With high-sounding words the Mohawks left by sailboat for the mouth of
the Richelieu, to continue on south to their own country. Another
council had been set, for the fall. Then the more distant tribes of
the Algonkins and the Hurons should meet the Iroquois, here at Three
Rivers, and seal a general peace.

At that greater council many belts of wampum were passed--to clear the
sky of clouds, to smooth the rivers and lakes and trails, to break the
hatchets and guns and shields, and the kettles in which prisoners were
boiled; to wash faces clean of war-paint and to wipe out the memory of
warriors slain.

There were dances and feasts; and in all good humor the throng broke up.

Peace seemed to have come to the forests. The Piskaret party might
well consider that they had opened the way. The happy priests gave
thanks to Heaven that their prayers had been answered, and that the
hearts of the Iroquois, the Algonkins and the Hurons were soft to the
teachings of Christianity.

Now, would the peace last?

Yes--for twelve months, with the Mohawks alone. After which, saying
that the Black Robe priests had sent them a famine plague in a box, the
Mohawks seized new and sharper hatchets, again sped upon the war-trail
to the St. Lawrence; and smote so terribly that at last they killed, in
the forest, even Piskaret himself, while singing a peace-song he
started to greet them.

The Algonkin peoples and the Hurons were driven like straw in the wind.
Many f