The Indians muttered angrily together. They declared the French had surrendered through cowardice the prisoners they had caught by treachery. The palefaces had expected their allies to bear the brunt of the war, and then left them to their fate. The Iroquois had actually burnt French captives in their towns.
“How long is it since the French have grown so bold?” shouted one in derision. “They have been shut up in their forts. Will they now fight in the light of day like men?”
“We shall fight or die,” answered St. Helène boldly. “Are our Indian allies squaws that they should fly at the first approach of danger? Before Onontio protected you you felt the teeth of the ravenous Iroquois dog. Our Governor tamed him and tied him up, but when Onontio was far away he devoured you worse than ever. We are strong enough to kill the English, destroy the Iroquois, and whip you if you fail in your duty to us. Will you let the English brandy that has killed you in your wigwams lure you into the kettles of the Iroquois?”
The Christian chief of Sault St. Louis, known as the “Great Mohawk,” harangued his followers, exhorting them to wash out their wrongs in blood, but the savages remained turbulent, and seemed to be upon the point of deserting in a body. Their defection would mean the failure of the enterprise. At this juncture Le Ber du Chesne came to the rescue. Persuasion having failed he tried the effects of taunts.
“You are cowards!” he cried. “You do not know what war is; go back to your women and children. You never killed a man, and you never ate one except those that were given you tied hand and foot. Go home; we do not need your services.”
Du Chesne gained his point. The pride of the warriors was aroused, and for the moment they were full of fight. The decision as to the point of attack was postponed, however, and the expedition moved on. When, after a march of eight days, they reached the Hudson, and found the place where two paths diverged, the one leading to Albany and the other to Schenectady, they took the latter. All agreed that an attack on Albany would be an act of desperation.
They bivouaced in the forest in squads of twelve or more. Digging away the snow in a circle, they covered the bare earth with a bed of spruce boughs, made a fire in the centre and gathered around it to smoke their pipes. Here crouched the Christian savage muffled in his blanket, his unwashed face bearing traces of the soot and vermilion he had assumed for the war-dance in the square of the mission village. There sat the Canadian, hooded like a Capuchin monk, but irrepressible in loquacity. The camp-fire glowed on their bronzed and animated features and lighted up the rocks and pines behind them. The silent woods beyond presented a region of enchanted romance and mystery.
Their slender store of provisions having been almost all consumed or shared with the Indians, Le Ber du Chesne was detailed to head a reconnoitring expedition of less than a score of men. Progress through the snow-clogged woods was slow and painful; the lengthening days had brought a partial thaw, and the little band waded through the melting snow and the mingled ice, mud and water of the gloomy swamps. Lowering gray clouds stretched monotonously over the desolate waste. Their provisions soon exhausted, they boiled moccasins for food, or scraped away the snow to find hickory and beech nuts. Fires could not be lighted lest the smoke should betray their presence. Many suffered from frost-bites, and the men soon were half dead with cold, fatigue and hunger.
The weather changed. Pelted by a cold, gusty snowstorm, they lost the track and toiled on, shaking down at every step a shower of fleecy white from the burdened branches. It seemed impossible either to advance or retreat. Thoroughly discouraged, shivering and famishing, it appeared as if nothing remained but to lie down and die.
“I would that I could see the little home, or that I could at least have the blessing of a priest. It is ill to die like a rat in a hole,” murmured le Canotier drowsily, as he sank down on the snow.