chiefs, but in war they were Iroquois, and the enemy of one was the enemy of all.  Their numbers were small, for they were never able to put two thousand warriors in the field, and their country was limited, for their villages were scattered over the tract which lies between Lake Champlain and Lake Ontario.  But they were united, they were cunning, they were desperately brave, and they were fiercely aggressive and energetic.  Holding a central position, they struck out upon each side in turn, never content with simply defeating an adversary, but absolutely annihilating and destroying him, while holding all the others in check by their diplomacy.  War was their business, and cruelty their amusement.  One by one they had turned their arms against the various nations, until, for a space of over a thousand square miles, none existed save by sufferance.  They had swept away Hurons and Huron missions in one fearful massacre.  They had destroyed the tribes of the north-west, until even the distant Sacs and Foxes trembled at their name.  They had scoured the whole country to westward until their scalping parties had come into touch with their kinsmen the Sioux, who were lords of the great plains, even as they were of the great forests.  The New England Indians in the east, and the Shawnees and Delawares farther south, paid tribute to them, and the terror of their arms had extended over the borders of Maryland and Virginia.  Never, perhaps, in the world’s history has so small a body of men dominated so large a district and for so long a time.

For half a century these tribes had nursed a grudge wards the French since Champlain and some of his followers had taken part with their enemies against them.  During all these years they had brooded in their forest villages, flashing out now and again in some border outrage, but waiting for the most part until their chance should come.  And now it seemed to them that it had come.  They had destroyed all the tribes who might have allied themselves with the white men.  They had isolated them.  They had supplied themselves with good guns and plenty of ammunition from the Dutch and English of New York.  The long thin line of French settlements lay naked before them.  They were gathered in the woods, like hounds in leash, waiting for the orders of their chiefs, which should precipitate them with torch and with tomahawk upon the belt of villages.

Such was the situation as the little party of refugees paddled along the bank of the river, seeking the only path which could lead them to peace and to freedom.  Yet it was, as they well knew, a dangerous road to follow.  All down the Richelieu River were the outposts and blockhouses of the French, for when the feudal system was grafted upon Canada the various seigneurs or native noblesse were assigned their estates in the positions which would be of most benefit to the settlement.  Each seigneur with his tenants under him, trained as they were in the use of arms,