He was treated like a
king. The women waited upon him like slaves, and the men gave him
presents of firearms and ammunition--the Indian's most precious
possessions. Between flattered vanity and indolence, other white men,
similarly treated, have lost their self-respect. Beckworth, of the
Missouri, became to all intents and purposes a savage; and Bird, of the
Blackfeet, degenerated lower than the Indians. Other Frenchmen
captured from the St. Lawrence, and white women taken from the New
England colonies, became so enamored of savage life that they refused
to leave the Indian lodges when peace had liberated them. Not so
Radisson. Though only seventeen, flattered vanity never caused him to
forget the gratitude he owed the Mohawk family. Though he relates his
life with a frankness that leaves nothing untold, he never at any time
returned treachery for kindness. The very chivalry of the French
nature endangered him all the more. Would he forget his manhood, his
birthright of a superior race, his inheritance of nobility from a
family that stood foremost among the _noblesse_ of New France?
[Illustration: Albany, from an Old Print.]
The spring of 1653 came with unloosening of the rivers and stirring of
the forest sap and fret of the warrior blood. Radisson's Iroquois
father held great feasts in which he heaved up the hatchet to break the
kettle of sagamite against all enemies. Would Radisson go on the
war-path with the braves, or stay at home with the women and so lose
the respect of the tribe? In the hope of coming again within reach of
Three Rivers, he offered to join the Iroquois in their wars.
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