They stopped and encamped for a deer-hunt. Five hundred Indians, in
line, like the skirmishers of an army advancing to battle, drove the
game to the end of a woody point; and the canoe-men killed them with
spears and arrows as they took to the river. Champlain and his men
keenly relished the sport, but paid a heavy price for their pleasure. A
Frenchman, firing at a buck, brought down an Indian, and there was need
of liberal gifts to console the sufferer and his friends.
The canoes now issued from the mouth of the Trent. Like a flock of
venturous wild-fowl, they put boldly out upon Lake Ontario, crossed it
in safety, and landed within the borders of New York, on or near the
point of land west of Hungry Bay. After hiding their light craft in the
woods, the warriors took up their swift and wary march, filing in
silence between the woods and the lake, for four leagues along the
strand. Then they struck inland, threaded the forest, crossed the outlet
of Lake Oneida, and after a march of four days, were deep within the
limits of the Iroquois. On the ninth of October some of their scouts met
a fishing-party of this people, and captured them,--eleven in number,
men, women, and children. They were brought to the camp of the exultant
Hurons. As a beginning of the jubilation, a chief cut off a finger of
one of the women, but desisted from further torturing on the angry
protest of Champlain, reserving that pleasure for a more convenient
season.
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