1&48.] ALARM. 375 



On the morning of the fourth of July, when the 

 forest around basked lazily in the early sun, you 

 might have mounted the rising ground on which 

 the town stood, and passed unchallenged through 

 the opening in the palisade. Within, you would 

 have seen the crowded dwellings of bark, shaped 

 like the arched coverings of huge baggage-wagons, 

 and decorated with the totems or armorial de- 

 vices of their owners daubed on the outside with 

 paint. Here some squalid wolfish dog lay sleeping 

 in the sun, a group of Huron girls chatted together 

 in the shade, old squaws pounded com in large 

 wooden mortars, idle youths gambled with cherry- 

 stones on a wooden platter, and naked infants 

 crawled in the dust. Scarcely a warrior was to be 

 seen. Some were absent in quest of game or of 

 Iroquois scalps, and some had gone with the trad- 

 ing-party to the French settlements. You followed 

 the foul passage-ways among the houses, and at 

 lenorth came to the church. It was full to the door. 

 Daniel had just finished the mass, and his flock 

 still knelt at their devotions. It was but the day 

 before that he had returned to them, warmed with 

 new fervor, from his meditations in retreat at Sainte 

 Marie. Suddenly an uproar of voices, shrill with 

 terror, burst upon the languid silence of the town. 

 " The Iroquois ! the Iroquois ! " A crowd of 

 hostile warriors had issued from the forest, and 

 were rushing across the clearing, towards the open- 

 ing in the palisade. Daniel ran out of the church, 

 and hurried to the point of danger. Some snatched 

 weapons ; some rushed to and fro in the madness 



