He and his outfit of two canoes met Pah-pah-tay, chief of the Grand
Lake Indians, travelling with his family. He called Anderson's
attention to the shape of the point which had one good landing-place,
a little sandy bay, and told him the story he heard from his people
of a battle that was fought there with the Iroquois long, long ago.

Four or five Iroquois war-canoes, filled with warriors, came to
this place on a foray for scalps. Their canoes were drawn up on
the beach at night. They lighted fires and had a war-dance. Three
Grand Lake Algonquins, forefathers of Pah-pah-tay, saw the dance
from, hiding. They cached their canoe, one of them took a sharp
flint--"we had no knives or axes then"--swam across to the canoes,
and cut a great hole in the bottom of each.

The three then posted themselves at three different points in the
bushes, and began whooping in as many different ways as possible.
The Iroquois, thinking it a great war-party, rushed to their canoes
and pushed off quickly. When they were in deep water the canoes
sank and, as the warriors swam back ashore, the Algonquins killed
them one by one, saving alive only one, whom they maltreated, and
then let go with a supply of food, as a messenger to his people, and
to carry the warning that this would be the fate of every Iroquois
that entered the Algonquin country.




CHAPTER IX

MOSQUITOES