They passed the perilous rapids of the Calumet, and were one night
encamped on an island, when an Indian, slumbering in an uneasy posture,
was visited with a nightmare. He leaped up with a yell, screamed, that
somebody was killing him, and ran for refuge into the river. Instantly
all his companions sprang to their feet, and, hearing in fancy the
Iroquois war-whoop, took to the water, splashing, diving, and wading up
to their necks, in the blindness of their fright. Champlain and his
Frenchmen, roused at the noise, snatched their weapons and looked in
vain for an enemy. The panic-stricken warriors, reassured at length,
waded crestfallen ashore, and the whole ended in a laugh.
At the Chaudiere, a contribution of tobacco was collected on a wooden
platter, and, after a solemn harangue, was thrown to the guardian
Manitou. On the seventeenth of June they approached Montreal, where the
assembled traders greeted them with discharges of small arms and cannon.
Here, among the rest, was Champlain's lieutenant, Du Parc, with his men,
who had amused their leisure with hunting, and were revelling in a
sylvan abundance, while their baffled chief, with worry of mind, fatigue
of body, and a Lenten diet of half-cooked fish, was grievously fallen
away in flesh and strength. He kept his word with DeVignau, left the
scoundrel unpunished, bade farewell to the Indians, and, promising to
rejoin then the next year, embarked in one of the trading-ships for
France.
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