fifty-five Frenchmen.  Five Jesuit Fathers were of the number, among them Fathers Chaumonot and Dablon.  Everything up to that time had gone wonderfully well in the new establishment; the missionaries knew the Iroquois language so well, and so well applied the rules of savage eloquence, that they impressed all the surrounding tribes; accordingly they were full of trust and dreamed of a rapid extension of the Catholic faith in these territories.  An Iroquois chief dispelled their illusion by revealing to them the plans of their enemies; they were already watched, and preparations were on foot to cut off their retreat.  In this peril the colonists took counsel, and hastily constructed in the granaries of their quarters a few boats, some canoes and a large barge, destined to transport the provisions and the fugitives.  They had to hasten, because the attack against their establishment might take place at any moment, and they must profit by the breaking up of the ice, which was impending.  But how could they transport this little flotilla to the river which flowed into Lake Ontario twenty miles away without giving the alarm and being massacred at the first step?  They adopted a singular stratagem derived from the customs of these people, and one in which the fugitives succeeded perfectly.  “A young Frenchman adopted by an Indian,” relates Jacques de Beaudoncourt, “pretended to have a dream by which he was warned to make a festival, ‘to eat everything,’ if he did not wish to die presently.  ‘You are my son,’ replied the Iroquois chief, ’I do not want you to die; prepare the feast and we shall eat everything.’  No one was absent; some of the French who were invited made music to charm the guests.  They ate so much, according to the rules of Indian civility, that they said to their host, ‘Take pity on us, and let us go and rest.’  ‘You want me to die, then?’ ‘Oh, no!’ And they betook themselves to eating again as best they could.  During this time the other Frenchmen were carrying to the river the boats and provisions.  When all was ready the young man said:  ’I take pity on you, stop eating, I shall not die.  I am going to have music played to lull you to sleep.’  And sleep was not long in coming, and the French, slipping hastily away from the banquet hall, rejoined their comrades.  They had left the dogs and the fowls behind, in order the better to deceive the savages; a heavy snow, falling at the moment of their departure, had concealed all traces of their passage, and the banqueters imagined that a powerful Manitou had carried away the fugitives, who would not fail to come back and avenge themselves.  After thirteen days of toilsome navigation, the French arrived in Montreal, having lost only three men from drowning during the passage.  It had been thought that they were all massacred, for the plans of the Iroquois had become known in the colony; this escape brought the greatest honour to Captain Dupuis, who had successfully carried it out.”