in French. It was the first time that Radisson had heard his native
tongue for months. He answered in French. At that the soldier emitted
shouts of delight, for he, too, was French, and these strangers in an
alien land threw their arms about each other like a pair of long-lost
brothers with exclamations of joy too great for words.

[Illustration: The Battery, New York, in Radisson's Time.]

From that moment Radisson became the lion of Fort Orange. The women
dragged him to their houses and forced more dainties on him than he
could eat. He was conducted from house to house in triumph, to the
amazed delight of the Indians. The Dutch offered to ransom him at any
price; but that would have exposed the Dutch settlement to the
resentment of the Mohawks and placed Radisson under heavy obligation to
people who were the enemies of New France. Besides, his honor was
pledged to return to his Indian parents; and it was a long way home to
have to sail to Europe and back again to Quebec. Perhaps, too, there
was deep in his heart what he did not realize--a rooted love for the
wilds that was to follow him all through life. By the devious course
of captivity, he had tasted of a new freedom and could not give it up.
He declined the offer of the Dutch. In two days he was back among the
Mohawks ten times more a hero than he had ever been. Mother and
sisters were his slaves.

But between love of the wilds and love of barbarism is a wide
difference. He had not been back for two weeks when that glimpse of
crude civilization at Orange recalled torturing memories of the French
home in Three Rivers. The filthy food, the smoky lodges, the cruelties
of the Mohawks, filled him with loathing. The nature of the white man,
which had been hidden under the grease and paint of the savage--and in