Radisson saw that apparent compliance with the Mohawks might win him a chance to escape; so he was the first to arise in the morning, wakening the others and urging them that it was time to break camp.  The stolid Indians were not to be moved by an audacious white boy.  Watching the young prisoner, the keepers lay still, feigning sleep.  Radisson rose.  They made no protest.  He wandered casually down to the water side.  One can guess that the half-closed eyelids of his guards opened a trifle:  was the mouse trying to get away from the cat?  To the Indians’ amusement, instead of trying to escape, Radisson picked up a spear and practised tossing it, till a Mohawk became so interested that he jumped up and taught the young Frenchman the proper throws.  That day the Indians gave him the present of a hunting-knife.  North of Lake Champlain, the river became so turbulent that they were forced to land and make a portage.  Instead of lagging, as captives frequently did from very fear as they approached nearer and nearer what was almost certain to mean death-torture in the Iroquois villages—­Radisson hurried over the rocks, helping the older warriors to carry their packs.  At night he was the first to cut wood for the camp fire.

About a week from the time they had left Lake St. Peter, they entered Lake Champlain.  On the shores of the former had been enacted the most hideous of all Indian customs—­the scalp dance.  On the shores of the latter was performed one of the most redeeming rites of Indian warfare.  Round a small pool of water a coppice of branches was interlaced.  Into the water were thrown hot stones till the enclosure was steaming.  Here each warrior took a sweat-bath of purification to prepare for reunion with his family.  Invoking the spirits as they bathed, the warriors emerged washed—­as they thought—­of all blood-guilt.[8]

[Illustration:  Map of the Iroquois country in the days of Radisson.]

In the night shots sounded through the heavy silence of the forest, and the Mohawks embarked in alarm, compelling their white prisoner to lie flat in the bottom of the canoe.  In the morning when he awakened, he found the entire band hidden among the rushes of the lake.  They spent several days on Lake Champlain, then glided past wooded mountains down a calm river to Lake George, where canoes were abandoned and the warriors struck westward through dense forests to the country of the Iroquois.  Two days from the lake slave women met the returning braves, and in Radisson’s words, “loaded themselves like mules with baggage.”  On this woodland march Radisson won golden opinions for himself by two acts:  struck by an insolent young brave, he thrashed the culprit soundly; seeing an old man staggering under too heavy a load, the white youth took the burden on his own shoulders.