The indispensable but most difficult task
remained: that of opening the Ottawa for the descent of the great
accumulation of beaver skins, which had been gathering at
Michillimackinac for three years, and for the want of which Canada was
bankrupt. More than two hundred Frenchmen were known to be at that
remote post, or roaming in the wilderness around it; and Frontenac
resolved on an attempt to muster them together, and employ their
united force to protect the Indians and the traders in bringing down
this mass of furs to Montreal. A messenger, strongly escorted, was
sent with orders to this effect, and succeeded in reaching
Michillimackinac, though there was a battle on the way, in which the
officer commanding the escort was killed. Frontenac anxiously waited
the issue, when after a long delay the tidings reached him of complete
success. He hastened to Montreal, and found it swarming with Indians
and _coureurs de bois_. Two hundred canoes had arrived, filled with
the coveted beaver skins. "It is impossible," says the chronicle, "to
conceive the joy of the people, when they beheld these riches. Canada
had awaited them for years. The merchants and the farmers were dying
of hunger. Credit was gone, and everybody was afraid that the enemy
would waylay and seize this last resource of the country.
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