After passing the Council Pipe from hand to hand in solemn silence, the sachems prepared to give their views.  One arose, and offering the smoke of incense to the four winds of heaven to invoke witness to the justice of the trial, gave his opinion on the matter of life or death.  Each of the chiefs in succession spoke.  Without any warning whatever, one chief rose and summarily tomahawked three of the captives.  That had been the sentence.  The rest were driven, like sheep for the shambles, to life-long slavery.

Radisson was left last.  His case was important.  He had sanctioned the murder of three Mohawks.  Not for a moment since he was recaptured had they dared to untie the hands of so dangerous a prisoner.  Amid deathly silence, the Iroquois father stood up.  Flinging down medicine-bag, fur robe, wampum belts, and tomahawk, he pointed to the nineteen scars upon his side, each of which signified an enemy slain by his own hand.  Then the old Mohawk broke into one of those impassioned rhapsodies of eloquence which delighted the savage nature, calling back to each of the warriors recollection of victories for the Iroquois.  His eyes took fire from memory of heroic battle.  The councillors shook off their imperturbable gravity and shouted “Ho, ho!” Each man of them had a memory of his part in those past glories.  And as they applauded, there glided into the wigwam the mother, singing some battle-song of valor, dancing and gesticulating round and round the lodge in dizzy, serpentine circlings, that illustrated in pantomime those battles of long ago.  Gliding ghostily from the camp-fire to the outer dark, she suddenly stopped, stood erect, advanced a step, and with all her might threw one belt of priceless wampum at the councillors’ feet, one necklace over the prisoner’s head.

Before the applause could cease or the councillors’ ardor cool, the adopted brother sprang up, hatchet in hand, and sang of other victories.  Then, with a delicacy of etiquette which white pleaders do not always observe, father and son withdrew from the Council Lodge to let the jury deliberate.  The old sachems were disturbed.  They had been moved more than their wont.  Twenty withdrew to confer.  Dusk gathered deeper and deeper over the forests of the Mohawk Valley.  Tawny faces came peering at the doors, waiting for the decision.  Outsiders tore the skins from the walls of the lodge that they, too, might witness the memorable trial of the boy prisoner.  Sachem after sachem rose and spoke.  Tobacco was sacrificed to the fire-god.  Would the relatives of the dead Mohawks consider the wampum belts full compensation?  Could the Iroquois suffer a youth to live who had joined the murderers of the Mohawks?  Could the Mohawks afford to offend the great Iroquois chief who was the French youth’s friend?  As they deliberated, the other councillors returned, accompanied by all the members of Radisson’s friendly family.  Again the father sang and spoke.  This time when he finished, instead of sitting down, he caught the necklace of wampum from Radisson’s neck, threw it at the feet of the oldest sachem, cut the captive’s bonds, and, amid shouts of applause, set the white youth free.