The principal officers present followed the example of their chief; indeed, not a little ambition was shown as to who should go through the ceremony with the most perfect accuracy, and some of the younger members of the party, who had become familiar with forest life, displayed much agility and derived apparent enjoyment from the ceremony.
At first the savages stood stolid, silent, making no response to the invitation extended to them. It was an interval of anxious suspense. Suddenly the Christian Iroquois of the two neighboring missions rose and joined the Frenchmen; then, as though impelled by some irresistible impulse, the Hurons and Algonquins of Lake Nipissing did the same. One wild tribe after another followed this example, until the whole troop joined in the stamping and screeching like an army of madmen, and the Governor with grave dignity led the dance, stamping and whooping like the rest. The heathen allies at last were thoroughly aroused. With the wildest enthusiasm they snatched the proffered hatchet and swore war to the death against the common enemy.
Then came a solemn war-feast. Barrels of wine with abundant supplies of tobacco were served out to the guests. Two oxen and several large dogs had been chopped to pieces for the occasion and boiled with a quantity of prunes. Kettles were carried in, and their steaming contents ladled into the wooden bowls with which each provident guest had supplied himself. Seated in a ring on the grass, the Indians began eagerly to devour the food placed before them. It was a point of conscience not to flinch, and they gorged themselves until they fairly choked with repletion. It was not a pleasant sight, yet the colonists regarded it with some complacency, seeing that it meant prosperity and security against danger.
CHAPTER XI.
THE ANNUAL FAIR.
THE following day witnessed the opening of the great Annual Fair. Trade was in full activity; never had Canada known a more prosperous commerce than now in the midst of her dangers and tribulations. That very morning, to the overwhelming joy of the citizens of Ville Marie, Le Durantaye, late Commandant at Michillimackinac, arrived with fifty canoes, manned by French traders and filled with valuable furs.
Merchants of high and low degree had brought up their most tempting goods from Quebec, and every inhabitant of Montreal of any substance sought by every means in his power to gain a share of the profit. The booths were set along the palisades of the town, and each had an expert interpreter, to whom the trader usually promised a certain portion of his gains. The payment was in card money—common playing cards—each stamped with a crown and a fleur de lys. The newly arrived French bushrangers were the heroes of the hour and appeared to enjoy their popularity. All the taverns were full. The coureurs de bois conducted themselves like the crew of a man-of-war paid off after a long voyage, and their fellow-countrymen, in the prevailing good-humor of the moment, willingly condoned their excesses. Many of them were painted and feathered like their wild Indian companions, whose ways they imitated with perfect success. Some appeared brutally savage, but often their bronzed countenances expressed only dare-devil courage and reckless gaiety.
“These gentry will live like lords, and set no bounds to their revelry as long as their beaver-skins last; then they will starve till they can go off to the countries up above there to seek a fresh supply. Swaggering, spending all their gains on dress and feasting, they even try to imagine themselves nobles, and despise the honest peasants, whose daughters they will not marry, even though they are themselves peasant-born,” said one priest to another, as he eyed with evident disapproval the noisy, reckless crew.
The windows on St. Paul Street were thrown open and crowded with ladies; the benches before every door were thronged. One woman of the poorer sort had a half-dressed baby in her arms; another a lettuce that she was washing; a third held a little bowl of soup, which she ate in the street, gesticulating with such frantic energy that her sabots rattled on the stones. All dreaded to lose any part of the show.