spread a terrifying
report of a second deluge for which the white men were preparing a
second Noah's Ark. Mohawk warriors at once scented an attempt to
escape when the ice broke up in spring, and placed their braves in
ambush along the portages. Also they sent a deputation to see if that
story of the boats were true. Forewarned by Radisson, the whites built
a floor over the boats, heaped canoes above the floor, and invited the
Mohawk spies in. The Mohawks smiled grimly and were reassured. Canoes
would be ripped into shingles if they ran the ice jam of spring. The
Iroquois felt doubly certain of their victims; but Radisson, free to go
among the warriors as one of themselves, learned that they were
plotting to murder half the colony and hold the other half as hostages
for the safety of the twelve Indians in the dungeon at Quebec. The
whites could delay no longer. Something must be done, but what?
Radisson, knowing the Indian customs, proposed a way out.

No normally built savage could refuse an invitation to a sumptuous
feast. According to Indian custom, no feaster dare leave uneaten food
on his plate. Waste to the Indian is crime. In the words of the
Scotch proverb, "Better burst than waste." And all Indians have
implicit faith in dreams. Radisson dreamed--so he told the
Indians--that the white men were to give them a marvelous banquet. No
sooner dreamed than done! The Iroquois probably thought it a chance to
obtain possession inside the fort; but the whites had taken good care
to set the banquet between inner and outer walls.

Such a repast no savage had ever enjoyed in the memory of the race.
All the ambushed spies flocked in from the portages. {102} The painted
warriors washed off their grease, donned their best buckskin, and
rallied to the banquet as to battle. All the stock but one solitary
pig, a few chickens and dogs, had been slaughtered for the kettle.
Such an odor of luscious meat steamed up from the fort for days as
whetted the warriors' hunger to the appetite of ravenous wolves.
Finally, one night, the trumpets blew a blare that almost burst
eardrums. Fifes shrilled, and the rub-a-dub-dub of a dozen drums set
the air in a tremor. A great fire had been kindled between the inner
and outer walls that set shadows dancing in the forest. Then the gates
were thrown open, and in trooped the feasters. All the French acting
as waiters, the whites carried in the kettles--kettles of wild fowl,
ket