On the last day of June 1665 a brilliant scene was witnessed in Quebec. On that glowing summer's day the gallant Marquis and the troops landed at the flowery base of towering Cape Diamond. What a different scene was now presented from that which had taken place but a few seasons before, when the impudent Iroquois had shaken their hatchets from {86} their canoes at the trembling and helpless Governor! The population had doubled as if by magic; thousands were on the ramparts shouting a welcome to the broad white standard blazoned with the arms of France, which floated proudly from fleet and fortress. The river-banks echoed with the hoarse note of cannon. The bells of the church and seminaries pealed in a frenzy of joy. Tracy, a giant six feet and a half high, and his officers stepped ashore, all gorgeously attired in crimson and white and gold. In the vanguard of the procession which climbed that day the heights of Quebec were twenty-four guards in the King's livery, followed by four pages and six valets. On arrival at the square, Laval, in his resplendent pontificals, received them, and noted with pleasure that the old marquis, although suffering from fever caught in the tropics, knelt on the bare pavement. A new order of things everywhere was begun. With the 2000 settlers came young women for wives, as well as horses, oxen, and sheep in abundance. It became Tracy's duty to look to the colony's protection in order that it might increase and multiply, and the only way to accomplish this was by curbing the power of the Iroquois. No time was lost in taking measures to this end. The forts at Quebec, Three Rivers, and Montreal were strengthened, three new forts, St. Theresa, Sorel, and Chambly, were built on the Richelieu River. Reports of the arrival of the troops, and of all their preparations, naturally spread far and wide amongst the Indians, and very soon four of the Five Nations thought it prudent to sue for peace. The fierce {87} Mohawks alone remained defiant; they were not to be cowed by all this martial pomp, and at last Courcelle, the Governor, with Tracy, the Viceroy's, permission, resolved to chastise them as soundly as they deserved. He would take them when they least expected it: surprise them in their lodges in the depths of winter, when his soldiers could travel over the frozen rivers as though on a paved highway. Many who had had experience of winter journeyings in Canada sought to dissuade him from the attempt, but the new Governor was anxious to distinguish himself, and win the approval of the Viceroy and his King. Early in January he and his 500 men began to march. Before they had reached Three Rivers many had their ears, noses, and fingers frozen, while some of the newly-arrived troops were so disabled by the cold, that they had to be left behind. But the old Indian fighters and native Canadians, of whom there were nearly a hundred, pressed forward bravely in the van,