Wigwams.
That busy summer ended, Pont Gravé sailed away, leaving Champlain and twenty-eight men to make good during the winter their bold invasion of the wilderness. They stood on the defensive; but the neighboring Indians proved friendly, and no human enemy came near their “habitation.” Yet the foundations of New France (as it seems of every colony) were laid in woe and anguish. The winter had hardly begun in earnest when the horrible scurvy appeared amongst them, and before spring twenty of the company lay cold and silent beneath the snow. Of the remaining eight, four had been at death’s door, but Champlain himself was still full of health and life and courage.
Once, when on an excursion up the St. Charles, he had chanced upon a tumble-down stone chimney, a few rusted cannon-balls, and some other relics which convinced him that he stood upon the spot where Jacques Cartier had wintered seventy-three years before. A less resolute man might have found the discovery disheartening; but Champlain had no thought of retreat.
Champlain Market.
Iroquois Long House.
Often during that melancholy winter he questioned the Algonquins, who had camped beside the little fort, as to what lay in the unknown regions beyond; and, listening to their talk of rivers, lakes and boundless forests, he grew more and more eager to plunge into the wilderness. But always the Indians added tragic stories of a foe infesting the woodland paths and lying ambushed beside the streams; and so Champlain, moved partly perhaps by chivalrous pity for their terror, and trusting in the superior military skill and excellent weapons of his own people, promised to take the field during the coming spring against the ubiquitous and blood-thirsty Iroquois.
Wayside Cross.