times over, they uttered a jubilant whoop and came on at a rush. Champlain and his two white men took aim. The foremost chiefs dropped in their tracks. Terrified by "the sticks that thundered and spat fire," the Iroquois fell back in amaze, halted, then fled. The victory was complete; but it left as a legacy to New France the undying enmity of the Iroquois.
When Champlain came out from France in 1610, he would have repeated the raid; but a fight with invading Iroquois at the mouth of the Richelieu delayed him, and the expiration of De Monts' monopoly took him back to France.
In 1611 trade was free to all comers. Fur traders flocked to the St. Lawrence like birds of passage. The only way to secure furs for De Monts was to go higher up the river beyond Quebec; and ascending to Montreal, Champlain built a factory called Place Royale, with a wall of bricks to resist the ice jam. This was the third French fort Champlain helped to found in Canada.
Presently, on his tracks to Montreal, came a flock of free traders. When the Hurons come shooting down the foamy rapids—here, a pole-shove to avoid splitting canoes on a rock in mid-rush; there, a dexterous whirl from the trough of a back wash—the fur traders fire off their guns in welcome. The Hurons are suspicious. What means it, these white men, coming in such numbers, firing off their "sticks that thunder"? At midnight they come stealthily to Champlain's lodge to complain. Peltries and canoes, the Indians transfer themselves above the rapids, and later conduct Champlain down those same white whirlpools to the uneasy amaze of the explorer.
It is clear to Champlain he must obtain royal patronage to stem the boldness of these free traders. In France he obtains the favor of the Bourbons; and he obtains it more generously because the world of Paris has gone agog about a fabulous tale that sets the court by the ears. From the first Champlain has encouraged young Frenchmen to winter with the Indian hunters and learn the languages. Brulé is with them now. Nicholas Vignau has just come back from the Ottawa with a fairy story of a marvelous voyage he has made with the Indians through the forests to the Sea of the North—the sea where Henry Hudson, the Englishman, had perished. As the romance gains the ear of the public, the young man waxes eloquent in detail, and tells of the number of Englishmen living there. Champlain is ordered to follow this exploration up.
May, 1613, he is back at Montreal, opposite that island named St. Helen, after the frail girl who became his wife, preparing to ascend the Ottawa with four white men—among them Vignau. What Vignau's sensations were, one may guess. The vain youth had not meant his love of notoriety to carry him so far; and he must have known that every foot of the way led him nearer detection; but the liar is always a gambler with chance. Mishap, bad weather, Indian war—might drive Champlain back. Vignau assumed bold face.
The path followed was that river trail up the Ottawa which was to become the highway of empire's westward march for two and a half centuries. Mount Royal is left to the rear as the voyageurs traverse the Indian trail through the forests along the rapids to that launching place named after the patron saint of French voyageur—Ste. Anne's. The river widens into the silver expanse of Two Mountains Lake, rimmed to the sky line by the vernal hills, with a silence and solitude over all, as when sunlight first fell on face of man. Here the eagle utters a lonely scream from the top of some blasted pine; there a covey of ducks, catching sight of the coming canoes, dive to bottom, only to reappear a gunshot away. Where the voyageurs land for their nooning, or camp at nightfall, or pause to gum the splits in their birch canoes, the forest in the full flush of spring verdure is a fairy woods. Against the elms and the maples leafing out in airy tracery that reveals the branches bronze among the budding green, stand the silver birches, and the somber hemlocks, and the resinous pines. Upbursting from the mold below is another miniature forest—a forest of ferns putting out the hairy fronds that in another month will be above the height of a man. Overhead, like a flame of fire, flashes the scarlet tanager with his querulous call; or the oriole flits from branch to branch, fluting his springtime notes; or the yellow warbler balances on topmost spray to sing his crisp love song on the long journey north to nest on Hudson Bay. And over all and in all, intangible as light, intoxicating as wine, is the tang of the clear, unsullied, crystal air, setting the blood coursing with new life. Little wonder that Brulé, and Vignau, and other young men whom Champlain sent to the woods to learn wood lore, became so enamored of the life that they never returned to civilization.
Presently the sibilant rush of waters forewarns rapids. Indians and voyageurs debark, invert canoes on their shoulders, packs on back with straps across foreheads, and amble away over the portages at that voyageurs' dog-trot which is half walk, half run. So the rapids of Carillon and Long Sault are ascended. Night time is passed on some sandy shore on a bed under the stars, or under the canoes turned upside down. Tents are erected only for the commander, Champlain; and at day dawn, while the tips of the trees are touched with light and the morning mist is smoking up from the river shot with gold, canoes are again on the water and paddle blades tossing the waves behind.
The Laurentian Hills now roll from the river in purpling folds like fields of heather. The Gatineau is passed, winding in on the right through dense forests. On the left, flowing through the rolling sand hills, and joining the main river just where the waters fall over a precipice in a cataract of spray, is the Rideau River with its famous falls resembling the white folds of a wind-blown curtain. Then the voyageurs have swept round that wooded cliff known as Parliament Hill, jutting out in the river, and there breaks on view a wall of water hurtling down in shimmering floods at the Chaudière Falls. The high cliff to the left and countercurrent from the falls swirl the canoes over on the right side to the sandy flats where the lumber piles to-day defile the river. Here boats are once more hauled up for portage—a long portage, nine miles, all the way to the modern town of Aylmer, where the river becomes wide as a lake, Lake Du Chêne of the oak forests. Here camp for the night was made, and leaks in the canoes mended with resin, round fires gleaming red as an angry eye across the darkening waters, while the prowling wild cats and lynx, which later gave such good hunting in these forests that the adjoining rapids became known as the Chats, sent their unearthly screams shivering through the darkness.
Somewhere near Allumette Isle, Champlain came to an Indian settlement of the Ottawa tribe. He camped to ask for guides to go on. Old Chief Tessouat holds solemn powwow, passing the peace pipe round from hand to hand in silence, before the warriors rise to answer Champlain. Then with the pompous gravity of Abraham dickering with the desert tribes, they warn Champlain it is unsafe to go farther. Beyond the Ottawa is the Nipissing, where dwell the Sorcerer Indians—a treacherous people. Beyond the Nipissing is the great Fresh Water Sea of the Hurons. They will grant Champlain canoes, but warn him against the trip. Later the interpreter comes with word they have changed their minds. Champlain must not go on. It is too dangerous. Attack would involve war.
"What," demanded Champlain, rushing into the midst of the council tent, "not go? Why, my young man, here"—pointing to Vignau—"has gone to that country and found no danger."
What Vignau thought at that stage is not told. The Indians turned on him in fury.
"Nicholas, did you say you had visited the Nipissings?"
Vignau hems and haws, and stammers, "Yes."
"Liar," roars the chief. "You slept here every night, and if you went to the Nipissings, you went in a dream." Then to Champlain, "Let him be tortured."
Champlain took the fellow to his own tent. Vignau reiterated his story. Champlain took him back to the council. The Indians jeered his answers and tore the story he told to tatters, showing Champlain how utterly wrong Vignau's descriptions were.
That night, on promise of forgiveness, Vignau fell on his knees and confessed the imposture to Champlain. When the fur canoes came down the Ottawa to trade at Montreal, Champlain accompanied them to the St. Lawrence, and sailed for France. His exploration had been an ignominious failure.
Champlain was ever Knight of the Cross as well as explorer.
