Three
or four days brought them to the mouth of the Richelien. Here they
separated; the Hurons and Algonquins made for the Ottawa, their homeward
route, each with a share of prisoners for future torments. At parting,
they invited Champlain to visit their towns and aid them again in their
wars, an invitation which this paladin of the woods failed not to
accept.
The companions now remaining to him were the Montagnais. In their camp
on the Richelien, one of them dreamed that a war party of Iroquois was
close upon them; on which, in a torrent of rain, they left their huts,
paddled in dismay to the islands above the Lake of St. Peter, and hid
themselves all night in the rushes. In the morning they took heart,
emerged from their hiding-places, descended to Quebec, and went thence
to Tadoussac, whither Champlain accompanied them. Here the squaws, stark
naked, swam out to the canoes to receive the heads of the dead Iroquois,
and, hanging them from their necks, danced in triumph along the shore,
One of the heads and a pair of arms were then bestowed on Champlain,--
touching memorials of gratitude, which, however, he was by no means to
keep for himself, but to present to the King.
Thus did New France rush into collision with the redoubted warriors of
the Five Nations.
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