The fleet of canoes, numerous as a flock of
blackbirds in autumn, began the long and weary voyage. The two
commanders had a heavy task. Discipline was impossible. The French
were scarcely less wild than the savages. Many of them were painted
and feathered like their red companions, whose ways they imitated with
perfect success. The Indians, on their part, 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 children 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 Indian wounded his own brother. On this the
tribesmen 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.
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