The next day the little party started from St. Valentin and worked northward in the direction of St. John.
The people of Pte. la Mull received Allen with great acclaim, for they were French and had suffered much from the constant interference of the English with their customs and the exercise of their religion. But they warned him against the people of Sabrevous, for they were so much opposed to the New Yorkers that they could not believe anyone who hailed from that colony, or any colony south of the St. Lawrence, could be friendly to them.
That was enough for Ethan Allen.
His mission was not to convert those who were friendly, but to gather in those who were ranked among his enemies.
Turning eastward, he started for Sabrevous, and with greater enthusiasm than he had felt up to that time.
Allen and his party were dressed ostensibly as merchants, and he professed to be in search of rare skins, to fill an order.
To give color to this assertion, Old Buckskin had brought with him a skin of the rarest color and kind, and Allen declared he should never rest until he had matched it.
No one knew better than Allen, unless it was Old Buckskin, that it would be the most difficult thing to find that shade of natural wool, and so the ruse was successful.
Early one morning, for the march was slow, a man approached the party and stopped Allen.
In French he asked if he was the merchant in search of a peculiar skin.