in hunting deer in the forest. For two months he did not
return. When he came back, he was accompanied not only
by Taignoagny and his own braves, but by a great number
of savages, fierce and strong, whom the French had never
before seen. Cartier was assured that treachery was
brewing, and he determined to forestall it. He took care
that his men should keep away from the settlement of
Stadacona, but he sent over his servant, Charles Guyot,
who had endeared himself to the Indians during the winter.
Guyot reported that the lodges were filled with strange
faces, that Donnacona had pretended to be sick and would
not show himself, and that he himself had been received
with suspicion, Taignoagny having forbidden him to enter
into some of the houses.

Cartier's plan was soon made. The river was now open and
all was ready for departure. Rather than allow himself
and his men to be overwhelmed by an attack of the great
concourse of warriors who surrounded the settlement of
Stadacona, he determined to take his leave in his own
way and at his own time, and to carry off with him the
leaders of the savages themselves. Following the custom
of his age, he did not wish to return without the
visible signs of his achievements. Donnacona had freely
boasted to him of the wonders of the great country far
up beyond Hochelaga, of lands where gold and silver
existed in abundance, where the people dressed like the
French in woollen clothes, and of even greater wonders
still,--of men with no stomachs, and of a race of beings
with only one leg. These things were of such import,