Toward winter four hundred Crees came to escort the explorers to the wooded lake region yet farther west towards the land of the Assiniboines, the modern Manitoba.  “We were Caesars,” writes Radisson.  “There was no one to contradict us.  We went away free from any burden, while those poor miserables thought themselves happy to carry our equipage in the hope of getting a brass ring, or an awl, or a needle. . . .  They admired our actions more than the fools of Paris their king. . . .[5] They made a great noise, calling us gods and devils.  We marched four days through the woods.  The country was beautiful with clear parks.  At last we came within a league of the Cree cabins, where we spent the night that we might enter the encampment with pomp the next day.  The swiftest Indians ran ahead to warn the people of our coming.”  Embarking in boats, where the water was open, the two explorers came to the Cree lodges.  They were welcomed with shouts.  Messengers marched in front, scattering presents from the white men,—­kettles to call all to a feast of friendship; knives to encourage the warriors to be brave; swords to signify that the white men would fight all enemies of the Cree; and abundance of trinkets—­needles and awls and combs and tin mirrors—­for the women.  The Indians prostrated themselves as slaves; and the explorers were conducted to a grand council of welcome.  A feast was held, followed by a symbolic dance in celebration of the white men’s presence.

Their entry to the Great Northwest had been a triumph:  but they could not escape the privations of the explorer’s life.  Winter set in with a severity to make up for the long, late autumn.  Snow fell continuously till day and night were as one, the sombre forests muffled to silence with the wild creatures driven for shelter to secret haunts.  Four hundred men had brought the explorers north.  Allowing an average of four to each family, there must have been sixteen hundred people in the encampment of Crees.  To prevent famine, the Crees scattered to the winter hunting-grounds, arranging to come together again in two months at a northern rendezvous.  When Radisson and Groseillers came to the rendezvous, they learned that the gathering hunters had had poor luck.  Food was short.  To make matters worse, heavy rains were followed by sharp frost.  The snow became iced over, destroying rabbit and grouse, which feed the large game.  Radisson noticed that the Indians often snatched food from the hands of hungry children.  More starving Crees continued to come into camp.  Soon the husbands were taking the wives’ share of food, and the women were subsisting on dried pelts.  The Crees became too weak to carry their snow-shoes, or to gather wood for fire.  The cries of the dying broke the deathly stillness of the winter forest; and the strong began to dog the footsteps of the weak.  “Good God, have mercy on these innocent people,” writes Radisson; “have mercy on us who acknowledge