When in our station we are placed,
And whales around us play,
We launch our boats into the main,
And swiftly chase our prey.
A STRANGE ESCAPE.
In 1658 there was a little French colony at Onondaga in New York. Some of the men in this colony were traders, and some were missionaries. They were living among the Onondaga Indians.
A French Missionary.
The Indians had been very friendly, but the French found out that a plot had been formed to put them all to death. Stakes had even been set up in order to burn some of them alive. There seemed no hope for the Frenchmen to escape. They knew, that, if they tried to get away by land, they should all be killed. If they shut themselves up in their fort, the Indians would besiege them, and they would starve to death. They had no boats by which to get away by sailing through the lakes and down the St. Lawrence River.