mself and Three Rivers.
Still, they treated him kindly, saying, "Chagon! Chagon!--Be merry!
Cheer up!" The fourth day up the Richelieu, he was embarked without
being fastened to the cross-bar, and he was given a paddle. Fresh to
the work, Radisson made a labor of his oar. The Iroquois took the
paddle and taught him how to give the light, deft, feather strokes of
the Indian canoeman. On the river they met another band of warriors,
and the prisoner was compelled to show himself a trophy of victory and
to sing songs for his captors. That evening the united bands kindled
an enormous campfire and with the scalps of the dead flaunting from
spear heads danced the scalp dance, reenacting in pantomime all the
episodes of the massacre to the monotonous chant-chant, of a recitative
relating the foray. At the next camping-ground, Radisson's hair was
shaved in front and decorated on top with the war-crest of a brave.
Having translated the white man into a savage, they brought him one of
the tin looking-glasses used by Indians to signal in the sun. "I,
viewing myself all in a pickle," relates Radisson, "smeared with red
and black, covered with such a top, . . . could not but fall in love
with myself, if I had not had better instructions to shun the sin of
pride."

Radisson saw that apparent compliance with the Mohawks might win him a
chance to escape; so he was the first to arise in the morning, wakening
the others and urging them that it was time to break camp. The stolid
Indians were not to be moved by an audacious white boy. Watching the
young prisoner, the keepers lay still, feigning sleep. Radisson rose.
They made no protest. He wandered casually down to the water side.
One can guess that the half-closed eyelids of his guards opened a
trifle: was the mouse trying to get away from the cat? To the Indians'
amusement, instead of trying to escape, Radisson picked up a spear and
practised tossing it, till a Mohawk became so interested that he jumped
up and taught the young Frenchman the proper throws. That day the
Indians gave him the present of a hunting-knife. North of Lake
Champlain, the river became so turbulent that they were forced to land
and make a _portage_. Instead of lagging, as captives frequently did
from very fear as they approached nearer and nearer what was almost
certain to mean death-torture in the Iroquois villages--Radisson
hurried over the rocks, helping the older warriors to carry their
packs.