112 LA BARRE AND THE IROQUOIS. [1684. 



were but half-hearted for the work in hand, for they 

 had already discovered that the English would pay 

 twice as much for a beaver skin as the French ; 

 and they asked nothing better than the appearance 

 of English traders on the lakes, and a safe peace 

 with the Iroquois, which should open to them the 

 market of New York. But they were like chil- 

 dren with the passions of men, inconsequent, fickle, 

 and wayward. They stopped to hunt on the shore 

 of Michigan, where a Frenchman accidentally shot 

 himself with his own gun. Here was an evil omen. 

 But for the efforts of Perrot, half the party would 

 have given up the enterprise, and paddled home. 

 In the Strait of Detroit there was another hunt, 

 and another accident. In firing at a deer, an In- 

 dian wounded his own brother. On this the tribes- 

 men of the wounded man proposed to kill the 

 French, as being the occasion of the mischance. 

 Once more the skill of Perrot prevailed ; but 

 when they reached the Long Point of Lake Erie, 

 the Foxes, about a hundred in number, were on 

 the point of deserting in a body. As persuasion 

 failed, Perrot tried the effect of taunts. " You are 

 cowards," he said to the naked crew, as they 

 crowded about him with their wild eyes and long 

 lank hair. " You do not know what war is : you 

 never killed a man and you never ate one, except 

 those that were given you tied hand and foot." 

 They broke out against him in a storm of abuse. 

 " You shall see whether we are men. We are 

 going to fight the Iroquois; and, unless you do your 

 part, we will knock you in the head." " You will 



