[Footnote: _Callieres a Seignelay, Jan._,
1689.] A declaration of neutrality was drawn up, and Big Mouth affixed
to it the figures of sundry birds and beasts as the signatures of
himself and his fellow-chiefs. [Footnote: See the signatures in _N. Y.
Col. Docs._, IX. 385, 386.] He promised, too, that within a certain
time deputies from the whole confederacy should come to Montreal and
conclude a general peace.
The time arrived, and they did not appear. It became known, however,
that a number of chiefs were coming from Onondaga to explain the
delay, and to promise that the deputies should soon follow. The chiefs
in fact were on their way. They reached La Famine, the scene of La
Barre's meeting with Big Mouth; but here an unexpected incident
arrested them, and completely changed the aspect of affairs. Among the
Hurons of Michillimackinac there was a chief of high renown named
Kondiaronk, or the Rat. He was in the prime of life, a redoubted
warrior, and a sage counsellor. The French seem to have admired him
greatly. "He is a gallant man," says La Hontan, "if ever there was
one;" while Charlevoix declares that he was the ablest Indian the
French ever knew in America, and that he had nothing of the savage but
the name and the dress.
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