danger of total eclipse--now came upper-most. With Radisson, to think
was to act. He determined to escape if it cost him his life.

Taking only a hatchet as if he were going to cut wood, Radisson left
the Indian lodge early one morning in the fall of 1653. Once out of
sight from the village, he broke into a run, following the trail
through the dense forests of the Mohawk Valley toward Fort Orange. On
and on he ran, all that day, without pause to rest or eat, without
backward glance, with eye ever piercing through the long leafy vistas
of the forest on the watch for the fresh-chipped bark of the trees that
guided his course, or the narrow indurated path over the spongy mould
worn by running warriors. And when night filled the forest with the
hoot of owl, and the far, weird cries of wild creatures on the rove,
there sped through the aisled columns of star light and shadow, the
ghostly figure of the French boy slim, and lithe as a willow, with
muscles tense as ironwood, and step silent as the mountain-cat. All
that night he ran without a single stop. Chill daybreak found him
still staggering on, over rocks slippery with the night frost, over
windfall tree on tree in a barricade, through brawling mountain brooks
where his moccasins broke the skim of ice at the edge, past rivers
where he half waded, half swam. He was now faint from want of food;
but fear spurred him on. The morning air was so cold that he found it
better to run than rest. By four of the afternoon he came to a
clearing in the forest, where was the cabin of a settler. A man was
chopping wood. Radisson ascertained that there were no Iroquois in the
cabin, and, hiding in it, persuaded the settler to carry a message to
Fort Orange, two miles farther on. While he waited Indians passed the
cabin, singing and shouting. The settler's wife concealed him behind
sacks of wheat and put out all lights. Within an hour came a rescue
party from Orange, who conducted him safely to the fort. For three