“Strengthened by this reinforcement, I ordered that the enemy should be fired on whenever they showed themselves. After sunset a violent northeast wind began to blow, accompanied by snow and hail, which told us we should have a terrible night. The Iroquois were all this time lurking about us, and I judged by their movements that, instead of being deterred by the storm, they would climb into the fort under cover of the darkness. I assembled all my troop (that is to say, six persons), and spoke to them thus: ‘God has saved us to-day from the hands of our foes, but we must take care not to fall into their snares to-night. As for me, I want you to see that I am not afraid. I will take charge of the fort, with the old man [she adds that he was eighty, and had never fired a gun, but he could probably carry an alarm]; and you, Pierre Fontaine, with La Bonté and Gachet, go to the block-house with the women and children, because that is the strongest place; and if I am taken, don’t surrender, even if I am cut to pieces and burned before your eyes. The enemy cannot hurt you in the block-house, if you make the least show of fight.’

“I placed my young brothers on two of the bastions, the old man on the third, and I took the fourth; and all night, in spite of wind, snow, and hail, the cries of ‘All’s well!’ were kept up from the block-house to the fort, and from the fort to the block-house. One would have thought that the place was full of soldiers. The Iroquois believed so, and were completely deceived, as they confessed afterwards to M. de Callières, to whom they told that they had held a council to make a plan for capturing the fort in the night, but had done nothing because such a constant watch was kept.

“About one o’clock in the morning the sentinel [the old man] on the bastion by the gate called out, ‘Mademoiselle, I hear something!’ I went to him to find out what it was, and by the help of the snow which covered the ground I could see in the darkness a number of cattle, the miserable remnant that the Iroquois had left us. The others wanted to open the gate and let them in, but I answered: ‘No. You don’t know all the tricks of the savages. They are, no doubt, following the cattle, covered with skins of such animals, so as to get into the fort if we are foolish enough to open the gate for them.’ Nevertheless, after taking every precaution, I decided that we might open it without risk.

“At last the daylight came again, and as the darkness disappeared our anxieties seemed to disappear with it. Everybody took courage excepting Madame Marguerite, wife of the Sieur Fontaine, who, being extremely timid, as all Parisian women are, asked her husband to carry her to another fort. [A silly request, certainly.] He said, ‘I will never abandon this fort while Mademoiselle Madeleine is here.’ I answered him that I would rather die than give it up to the enemy, and that it was of the greatest importance that they should never get possession of any French fort, because if they took one they would think they could get others, and would grow more bold and presumptuous than ever.

“I may say, with truth, that I did not eat nor sleep for twice twenty-four hours. I did not go once into my father’s house, but kept always on the bastion, or went to the block-house to see how the people there were behaving. I always kept a cheerful and smiling face, and encouraged my little company with the hope of speedy succor.

“We were one week in constant alarm, with the enemy always about us. At last M. de la Monnerie, a lieutenant sent by M. de Callières, arrived in the night with forty men. [He came down the river.] As he did not know whether the fort was taken or not, he approached as silently as possible. One of our sentinels, hearing a slight sound, cried, ‘Who goes there?’ I was at the time dozing, with my head on a table and my gun lying across my arms. The sentinel told me that he heard a voice from the river. I went up at once to the bastion to see whether it was of Indians or Frenchmen. I demanded, ‘Who goes there?’ One of them replied, ‘We are Frenchmen; it is De la Monnerie, come to bring you help.’ I caused the gate to be opened, placed a sentinel there, and went down to the river to meet them. As soon as I saw M. de la Monnerie I saluted him and said, ‘Monsieur, I resign my arms to you.’ He answered, gallantly, ‘Mademoiselle, they are in good hands.’ ‘Better than you suppose,’ I returned. He inspected the fort and found everything in order and a sentinel on each bastion. ‘It is time to relieve them, monsieur,’ said I; ‘we have not been off our bastions for a week.’”

M. de la Monnerie in astonished admiration took charge of the relieved fort. The heroine’s work was over. The savages fled, and not long after they were captured near Lake Champlain, and some twenty persons they had made prisoners at Verchères were brought safely back. The father and mother of Madeleine came from Montreal and Quebec, and heard the story of her valor and coolness with rapturous praise. She grew up to be a woman, receiving for her life a pension from the King of France as a mark of honor, and she died at an advanced age.

VIII
HOW MARC WAS MADE CAPTAIN
A Rescue from the “Lords of the Woods” in 1695

One evening in the winter of 1694-95 a dozen young men were lounging around the fire in the big room of the storehouse at St. Maxime, a small settlement on the St. Lawrence River. The door opened and two others entered, brushing the snow from their leggings and moccasins.