on either side to hunt up food for the expedition;
and a third section was told off for "intelligence" work, namely, they
ran on ahead and roundabout to locate the enemy, looking out
especially along the rivers for marks or signals showing whether
friends or enemies had passed that way. These marks were devised by
the chiefs of the different tribes, and were duly communicated to the
war leaders of tribes in friendship or alliance, like our cipher
codes; and equally they were changed from time to time to baffle the
enemy. Neither hunters nor main body ever got in front of the advance
guard, lest they should give an alarm. Thus they travelled until they
got within two days or so of the enemies' headquarters; thenceforward
they only marched by night, and hid in the woods by day, making no
fires or noise, and subsisting only on cooked maize meal.

At intervals the soothsayers accompanying the army were consulted for
signs and omens; and when the war-chiefs decided on their plan of
campaign they summoned all the fighting men to a smooth place in a
wood, cut sticks a foot long (as many as there were warriors), and
each leader of a division "put the sticks in such order as seemed to
him best, indicating to his followers the rank and order they were to
observe in battle. The warriors watched carefully this proceeding,
observing attentively the outline which their chief had made with the
sticks. Then they would go away and set to placing themselves in such
order as the sticks were in. This manoeuvre they repeated several
times, and at all their encampments, without needing a sergeant to
maintain them in the proper order they were able to keep accurately
the positions assigned to them" (Champlain).

The Hurons who were accompanying Champlain frequently questioned him
as to his dreams, they themselves having a great belief in the value
of dreams as omens and indications of future events. One day, when
they were approaching the country of the Iroquois, Champlain actually
did have a dream. In this he imagined that he saw the Iroquois enemies
drowning in a lake near a mountain. Moved to pity in his dream he
wished to help them, but his savage allies insisted that they must be
allowed to die. When he awoke he told the Amerindians of his dream,
and they were greatly impressed, as they regarded it as a good omen.

Near the modern town of Ticonderoga the Hurons and Algonkins of
Georgian Bay and Ottawa met a party of Iroquois, probably