The Onondagas were too deep to reveal their plots with seven armed
Frenchmen in pursuit. The Indians permitted the French boats to come
up with the main band. All camped together in the most friendly
fashion that night; but the next morning one Iroquois offered passage
in his canoe to one Frenchman, another Iroquois to another of the
whites, and by the third day, when they came to Lake St. Francis, the
old canoe had been abandoned. The French were scattered promiscuously
among the Iroquois, with no two whites in one boat. The Hurons were
quicker to read the signs of treachery than the French. There were
rumors of one hundred Mohawks lying in ambush at the Thousand Islands
to massacre the coming Hurons. On the morning of August 3 four Huron
warriors and two women seized a canoe, and to the great astonishment of
the encampment launched out before they could be stopped. Heading the
canoe back for Montreal, they broke out in a war chant of defiance to
the Iroquois.
The Onondagas made no sign, but they evidently took council to delay no
longer. Again, when they embarked, they allowed no two whites in one
canoe. The boats spread out. Nothing was said to indicate anything
unusual. The lake lay like a silver mirror in the August sun. The
water was so clear that the Indians frequently paused to spear fish
lying below on the stones. At places the canoes skirted close to the
wood-fringed shore, and braves landed to shoot wild-fowl.
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