[Illustration: A parley on the Plains.]
A great fire had been kindled inside the court of the Cree stockades. Round the pavilion the Sioux elders seated themselves. First, they solemnly smoked the calumet of peace. Then the chief of the Sioux rose and chanted a song, giving thanks for their safe journey. Setting aside gifts of rare beaver pelts, he declared that the Sioux had come to make friends with the French, who were masters of peace and war; that the elders would conduct the white men back to the Sioux country; that the mountains were levelled and the valleys cast up, and the way made smooth, and branches strewn on the ground for the white men's feet, and streams bridged, and the doors of the tepees open. Let the French come to the Sioux! The Indians would die for the French. A gift was presented to invoke the friendship of the Crees. Another rich gift of furs let out the secret of the Sioux' anxiety: it was that the French might give the Sioux "thunder weapons," meaning guns.
The speech being finished, the Crees set a feast before their guests. To this feast Radisson and Groseillers came in a style that eclipsed the Sioux. Cree warriors marched in front, carrying guns. Radisson and Groseillers were dressed in armor.[7] At their belts they wore pistol, sword, and dagger. On their heads were crowns of colored porcupine quills. Two pages carried the dishes and spoons to be used at the feast; and four Cree magicians followed with smoking calumets in their hands. Four Indian maids carried bearskins to place on the ground when the two explorers deigned to sit down. Inside the fort more than six hundred councillors had assembled. Outside were gathered a thousand spectators. As Radisson and Groseillers entered, an old Cree flung a peace pipe at the explorers' feet and sang a song of thanksgiving to the sun that he had lived to see "those terrible men whose words (guns) made the earth quake." Stripping himself of his costly furs, he placed them on the white men's shoulders, shouting: "Ye are masters over us; dead or alive, dispose of us as you will."
Then Radisson rose and chanted a song, in which he declared that the French took the Crees for brethren and would defend them. To prove his words, he threw powder in the fire and had twelve guns shot off, which frightened the Sioux almost out of their senses. A slave girl placed a coal in the calumet. Radisson then presented gifts; the first to testify that the French adopted the Sioux for friends; the second as a token that the French also took the Crees for friends; the third as a sign that the French "would reduce to powder with heavenly fire" any one who disturbed the peace between these tribes. The fourth gift was in grateful recognition of the Sioux' courtesy in granting free passage through their country. The gifts consisted of kettles and hatchets and awls and needles and looking-glasses and bells and combs and paint, but not guns. Radisson's speech was received with "Ho, ho's" of applause. Sports began. Radisson offered prizes for racing, jumping, shooting with the bow, and climbing a greased post. All the while, musicians were singing and beating the tom-tom, a drum made of buffalo hide stretched on hoops and filled with water.
Fourteen days later Radisson and Groseillers set out for the Sioux country, or what are now known as the Northwestern states.[8] On the third voyage Radisson came to the Sioux from the south. On this voyage, he came to them from the northeast. He found that the tribe numbered seven thousand men of fighting age. He remarked that the Sioux used a kind of coke or peat for fire instead of wood. While he heard of the tribes that used coal for fire, he does not relate that he went to them on this trip. Again he heard of the mountains far inland, where the Indians found copper and lead and a kind of stone that was transparent.[9] He remained six weeks with the Sioux, hunting buffalo and deer. Between the Missouri and the Saskatchewan ran a well-beaten trail northeastward, which was used by the Crees and the Sioux in their wars. It is probable that the Sioux escorted Radisson back to the Crees by this trail, till he was across what is now the boundary between Minnesota and Canada, and could strike directly eastward for the Lake of the Woods region, or the hinterland between James Bay and Lake Superior.
In spring the Crees went to the Bay of the North, which Radisson was seeking; and after leaving the Sioux, the two explorers struck for the little fort north of Lake Superior, where they had cached their goods. Spring in the North was later than spring in the South; but the shore ice of the Northern lakes had already become soft. To save time they cut across the lakes of Minnesota, dragging their sleighs on the ice. Groseillers' sleigh was loaded with pelts obtained from the Sioux, and the elder man began to fag. Radisson took the heavy sleigh, giving Groseillers the lighter one. About twelve miles out from the shore, on one of these lakes, the ice suddenly gave, and Radisson plunged through to his waist. It was as dangerous to turn back as to go on. If they deserted their merchandise, they would have nothing to trade with the Indians; but when Radisson succeeded in extricating himself, he was so badly strained that he could not go forward another step. There was no sense in risking both their lives on the rotten ice. He urged Groseillers to go on. Groseillers dared not hesitate. Laying two sleds as a wind-break on each side of Radisson, he covered the injured man with robes, consigned him to the keeping of God, and hurried over the ice to obtain help from the Crees.
The Crees got Radisson ashore, and there he lay in agony for eight days. The Indians were preparing to set out for the North. They invited Radisson to go with them. His sprain had not healed; but he could not miss the opportunity of approaching the Bay of the North. For two days he marched with the hunters, enduring torture at every step. The third day he could go no farther and they deserted him. Groseillers had gone hunting with another band of Crees. Radisson had neither gun nor hatchet, and the Indians left him only ten pounds of pemmican. After a short rest he journeyed painfully on, following the trail of the marching Crees. On the fifth day he found the frame of a deserted wigwam. Covering it with branches of trees and kindling a fire to drive off beasts of prey, he crept in and lay down to sleep. He was awakened by a crackling of flame. The fire had caught the pine boughs and the tepee was in a blaze. Radisson flung his snow-shoes and clothing as far as he could, and broke from the fire-trap. Half-dressed and lame, shuddering with cold and hunger, he felt through the dark over the snow for his clothing. A far cry rang through the forest like the bay of the wolf pack. Radisson kept solitary watch till morning, when he found that the cry came from Indians sent out to find him by Groseillers. He was taken to an encampment, where the Crees were building canoes to go to the Bay of the North.
The entire band, with the two explorers, then launched on the rivers flowing north. "We were in danger to perish a thousand times from the ice jam," writes Radisson. ". . . At last we came full sail from a deep bay … we came to the seaside, where we found an old house all demolished and battered with bullets.… They (the Crees) told us about Europeans.… We went from isle to isle all that summer.… This region had a great store of cows (caribou).… We went farther to see the place that the Indians were to pass the summer.… The river (where they went) came from the lake that empties itself in … the Saguenay … a hundred leagues from the great river of Canada (the St. Lawrence) … to where we were in the Bay of the North.… We passed the summer quietly coasting the seaside.… The people here burn not their prisoners, but knock them on the head.… They have a store of turquoise.… They find green stones, very fine, at the same Bay of the Sea (labradorite).… We went up another river to the Upper Lake (Winnipeg)." [10]
For years the dispute has been waged with zeal worthy of a better cause whether Radisson referred to Hudson Bay in this passage. The French claim that he did; the English that he did not. "The house demolished with bullets" was probably an old trading post, contend the English; but there was no trading post except Radisson's west of Lake Superior at that time, retort the French. By "cows" Radisson meant buffalo, and no buffalo were found as far east as Hudson Bay, say the English; by "cows" Radisson meant caribou and deer, and herds of these frequented the shores of Hudson Bay, answer the French. No river comes from the Saguenay to Hudson Bay, declare the English; yes, but a river comes from the direction of the Saguenay, and was followed by subsequent explorers, assert the French.[11] The stones of turquoise and green were agates from Lake Superior, explain the English; the stones were labradorites from the east coast of the Bay, maintain the French. So the childish quarrel has gone on for two centuries. England and France alike conspired to crush the man while he lived; and when he died they quarrelled over the glory of his discoveries. The point is not whether Radisson actually wet his oars in the different indentations of Hudson and James bays. The point is that he found where it lay from the Great Lakes, and discovered the watershed sloping north from the Great Lakes to Hudson Bay. This was new ground, and entitled Radisson to the fame of a discoverer.