to admit all the Hurons; and when the Iroquois came up from the Richelieu with Huron renegades among their warriors, the Hurons deserted their French allies and went over in a body to the enemy.  For two days the French had fought against two hundred Iroquois.  For five more days they fought against eight hundred.  “The worst of it was,” relates Radisson, “the French had no water, as we plainly saw; for they had made a hole in the ground out of which they could get but little because the fort was on a hill.  It was pitiable.  There was not a tree but what was shot with bullets.  The Iroquois had rushed to make a breach (in the wall). . . .  The French set fire to a barrel of powder to drive the Iroquois back . . . but it fell inside the fort. . . .  Upon this, the Iroquois entered . . . so that not one of the French escaped. . . .  It was terrible . . . for we came there eight days after the defeat.” [22]

Without a doubt it was Dollard’s splendid fight that put fear in the hearts of the Iroquois who fled before Radisson.  The passage to Montreal was clear.  The boats ran the rapids without unloading; but Groseillers almost lost his life.  His canoe caught on a rock in midstream, but righting herself shot down safely to the landing with no greater loss than a damaged keel.  The next day, after two years’ absence, Radisson and Groseillers arrived at Montreal.  A brief stop was made at Three Rivers for rest till twenty citizens had fitted out two shallops with cannon to escort the discoverers in fitting pomp to Quebec.  As the fleet of canoes glided round Cape Diamond, battery and bastion thundered a welcome.  Welcome they were, and thrice welcome; for so ceaseless had been the Iroquois wars that the three French ships lying at anchor would have returned to France without a single beaver skin if the explorers had not come.  Citizens shouted from the terraced heights of Chateau St. Louis, and bells rang out the joy of all New France over the discoverers’ return.  For a week Radisson and Groseillers were feted.  Viscomte d’Argenson, the new governor, presented them with gifts and sent two brigantines to carry them home to Three Rivers.  There they rested for the remainder of the year, Groseillers at his seigniory with his wife, Marguerite; Radisson, under the parental roof.[23]

[1] Mr. Benjamin Sulte establishes this date as 1634.

[2] See Jesuit Relations, 1656-57-58.  I have purposely refrained from entering into the heated controversy as to the identity of these two men.  It is apart from the subject, as there is no proof these men went beyond the Green Bay region.

[3] These routes were; (1) By the Saguenay, (2) by Three Rivers and the St. Maurice, (3) by Lake Nipissing, (4) by Lake Huron, through the land of the Sautaux, (5) by Lake Superior overland, (6) by the Ottawa.  See Jesuit Relations for detailed accounts of these routes.  Dreuillettes went farther west to the Crees a few years later, but that does not concern this narrative.