Going with the current, the Hurons had little need to labor, and the gush of their oars came at longer intervals than during the up-stream voyage.
Dollard had wrapped Claire well. He held the furs around her with one arm. By that ghostly daylight which the moon makes she could follow every line and contour of his face. He examined every visible point on the river’s surface, and turned an acute ear for shore sounds. Before he began to speak, the disturbance of his spirit reached her, and quite drove all mention of Mademoiselle de Granville from her lips.
Having satisfied himself that no other craft haunted the river, Dollard turned his eyes upon Claire’s, and spoke to her ear so that his voice was lost two feet away.
“Claire, the Iroquois are the curse of this province. Let me tell you what they have done. They are a confederation of five Indian nations: their settlements are south of the great Lake Ontario, but they spread themselves all along the St. Lawrence, murder settlers, make forays into Montreal and Quebec; they have almost exterminated the Christian Hurons, and when they offer us truces they do it only to throw us off our guard. The history of this colony is a history of a hand-to-hand struggle against the Iroquois.”
“If they are so strong,” whispered Claire, “how have the settlements lived at all?”
“Partly because their mode of warfare is peculiar, and consists in overrunning, harassing, and burning certain points and then retiring to the woods again, and partly because they needed the French. We are useful to them in furnishing certain supplies for which they trade. But they also trade with the Dutch colony on the Hudson River. Only lately have they made up their minds to sweep over this province and destroy it.”
“How do you know this?”
“I know that at this time two bands of these savages, each hundreds strong, are moving to meet each other somewhere on the Ottawa River. We have heard rumors, and some prisoners have been brought in and made to confess, and the mere fact that no skulking parties haunt us shows that they are massing.”
Dollard drew a deep breath.
“I shall not dread this danger, being with you,” said Claire.