They passed safely through two dangerous defiles,
and, about two in the afternoon, began to enter a third. Dense forests
covered the hills on either hand. La Durantaye with Tonty and his
cousin Du Lhut led the advance, nor could all Canada have supplied
three men better for the work. Each led his band of _coureurs de
bois_, white Indians, without discipline, and scarcely capable of it,
but brave and accustomed to the woods. On their left were the Iroquois
converts from the missions of Saut St. Louis and the Mountain of
Montreal, fighting under the influence of their ghostly prompters
against their own countrymen. On the right were the pagan Indians from
the west. The woods were full of these painted spectres, grotesquely
horrible in horns and tail; and among them flitted the black robe of
Father Engelran, the Jesuit of Michillimackinac. Nicolas Perrot and
two other bush-ranging Frenchmen were assigned to command them, but in
fact they obeyed no man. These formed the vanguard, eight or nine
hundred in all, under an excellent officer, Callieres, governor of
Montreal. Behind came the main body under Denonville, each of the four
battalions of regulars alternating with a battalion of Canadians. Some
of the regulars wore light armor, while the Canadians were in plain
attire of coarse cloth or buckskin.
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