earth and evinced great enthusiasm over their future work. When they visited the first Indian settlement, we are told by one of the priests that Madame de la Peltrie and the rest embraced the little Indian girls, "without taking heed whether they were clean or not." Yet at home in Paris these fine ladies would probably not have cared to take the poor dirty little French children to their bosoms. The Jesuits quickly spread themselves everywhere. {59} No hardship, no danger, no cold was too great for them. Amongst the Huron Indians they soon found their greatest success. There numbered 30,000 Hurons before disaster befell them, considered the most intelligent and progressive of the Canadian Indians. Three fathers, led by the indomitable Jean de Brébeuf, went forth to establish missions amongst them. Brébeuf came of a noble family in Normandy, a tall strong man, who seemed born for a soldier. He could perform wonderful feats of strength and endurance. He penetrated the wilderness in spite of every obstacle, and established a mission at Thonatiria, on Georgian Bay. At first the Jesuits were opposed by the tribe, who foolishly regarded all their sacraments and services as the deeds of sorcerers. Whenever any evil happened to any of them, when the crops were frost-bitten, or even when a child fell ill, the Hurons put it all down to the incantations of the "Black Robes," as they called the missionaries. But gradually the Jesuits lived down all such prejudice. The Hurons saw they were strong, wise men, and at last placed themselves unreservedly in their hands. While the Jesuit fathers made their central station at St Mary on the Wye, a little river emptying into Matchedash Bay, they founded other missions, St. Louis, St. Jean, St. Michael, St. Joseph, in all the country round about. In course of a very few years the missionaries came almost to be the rulers of all the tribes there settled. But the Iroquois hate against the Hurons was fast fanning into flame. Having sworn vengeance upon them because of their alliance {60} with the French, sooner or later they would find them out, and then, alas, the most dreadful, thrilling scenes in the whole history of Canada would happen. While the Hurons and their ministering Jesuits were living in fancied security in their corner of the west, the French in Quebec and Three Rivers were in constant dread of the Iroquois. Day by day the redskins grew bolder. At first, terrified by the French cannon and muskets, they did not venture to approach too near the walls of the French forts. But by degrees that fear wore away, and the sentries, looking out from the bastions, would often see a dozen or two Iroquois braves lurking about the fort in the hopes of catching some straggler unawares and scalping him. One day indeed they were rewarded. Two Frenchmen named Godefroy and François Margerie were captured and dragged away to their lodges. The Iroquois chief, summoning all his forces, prepared a plan.