In the morning the surface was glazed
ice, and they could march without snow-shoes. Spring thaw called a
halt to their exploration. The Crees encamped for three weeks to build
boats. As soon as the ice cleared, the band launched back down-stream
for the appointed rendezvous on Green Bay. All that Radisson learned
on this trip was that the Bay of the North lay much farther from Lake
Superior than the old Nipissing chief had told Dreuillettes and
Groseillers.[17]
Groseillers had all in readiness to depart for Quebec; and five hundred
Indians from the Upper Country had come together to go down the Ottawa
and St. Lawrence with the explorers. As they were about to embark,
_coureurs_ came in from the woods with news that more than a thousand
Iroquois were on the war-path, boasting that they would exterminate the
French.[18] Somewhere along the Ottawa a small band of Hurons had been
massacred. The Indians with Groseillers and Radisson were terrified.
A council of the elders was called.
"Brothers, why are ye so foolish as to put yourselves in the hands of
those that wait for you?" demanded an old chief, addressing the two
white men. "The Iroquois will destroy you and carry you away captive.
Will you have your brethren, that love you, slain? Who will baptize
our children?" (Radisson and Groseillers had baptized more than two
hundred children.[19]) "Stay till next year! Then you may freely go!
Our mothers will send their children to be taught in the way of the
Lord!"
Fear is like fire.
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