The wind changed from north to south, clearing the lakes of ice
and filling the air with the earthy smells of up-bursting growth.
"There was such a thawing," writes Radisson, "ye little brookes flowed
like rivers, which made us embark to wander over that sweet sea."
Lounging in their skiff all day, carried from shore to shore with the
waves, and sleeping round camp-fires on the sand each night, the young
braves luxuriated in all the delights of sunny idleness and spring
life. But this was not war. It was play, and play of the sort that
weans the white man from civilization to savagery.
One day a scout, who had climbed to the top of a tree, espied two
strange squaws. They were of a hostile tribe. The Mohawk bloodthirst
was up as a wolf's at the sight of lambs. In vain Radisson tried to
save the women by warning the Iroquois that if there were women, there
must be men, too, who would exact vengeance for the squaws' death. The
young braves only laid their plans the more carefully for his warning
and massacred the entire encampment. Prisoners were taken, but when
food became scarce they were brutally knocked on the head. These
tribes had never heard guns before, and at the sound of shots fled as
from diabolical enemies. It was an easy matter for the young braves in
the course of a few weeks to take a score of scalps and a dozen
prisoners. At one place more than two hundred beaver were trapped. At
the end of the raid, the booty was equally divided.
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