24 LE JEUNE AND THE HUNTERS. [1633 



and Mestigoit was shooting wild-fowl for supper, 

 Pierre returned to the canoes, tapped the keg of 

 wine, and soon fell into the mud, helplessly drunk. 

 Revived by the immersion, he next appeared at 

 the camp, foaming at the mouth, threw down the 

 lodges, overset the kettle, and chased the shrieking 

 squaws into the woods. His brother Mestigoit 

 rekindled the fire, and slung the kettle anew ; 

 when Pierre, who meanwhile had been raving like 

 a madman along the shore, reeled in a fury to the 

 spot to repeat his former exploit. Mestigoit anti- 

 cipated him, snatched the kettle from the fire, and 

 threw the scalding contents in his face. " He was 

 never so well washed before in his life," says Le 

 Jeune ; "he lost all the skin of his face and breast. 

 Would to God his heart had changed also ! " ^ He 

 roared in his frenzy for a hatchet to kill the 

 missionary, who therefore thought it prudent to 

 spend the night in the neighboring woods. Here 

 he stretched himself on the earth, while a char- 

 itable squaw covered him with a sheet of birch- 

 bark. " Though my bed," he writes, " had not 

 been made up since the creation of the world, it 

 was not hard enough to prevent me from sleep- 

 ing." 



Such was his initiation into Indian winter life. 

 Passing over numerous adventures by water and 

 land, we find the party, on the twelfth of Novem- 

 ber, leaving their canoes on an island, and wading 



1 Jamais il ne fut si bien laue, il changea de peau en la face et en tout 

 Testomach : pleust a Dieu que son ame eust charge aussi bien que son 

 corps \"— Relation, 1634, 59. 



