Young warriors had gone out as scouts, and now they returned. They had seen the enemy in the line of forest that bordered the River Aramoni, or Vermilion, and had stealthily reconnoitred them. They were very numerous, [Footnote: The _Relation des Decouvertes_ says, five hundred Iroquois and one hundred Shawanoes. Membre says that the allies were Miamis. He is no doubt right, as the Miamis had promised their aid, and the Shawanoes were at peace with the Illinois. Tonty is silent on the point.] and armed for the most part with guns, pistols, and swords. Some had bucklers of wood or raw hide, and some wore those corselets of tough twigs interwoven with cordage which their fathers had used when firearms were unknown. The scouts added more, for they declared that they had seen a Jesuit among the Iroquois; nay, that La Salle himself was there, whence it must follow that Tonty and his men were enemies and traitors. The supposed Jesuit was but an Iroquois chief arrayed in a black hat, doublet, and stockings; while another, equipped after a somewhat similar fashion, passed in the distance for La Salle. But the Illinois were furious. Tonty's life hung by a hair. A crowd of savages surrounded him, mad with rage and terror. He had come lately from Europe, and knew little of Indians; but, as the friar Membre says of him, "he was full of intelligence and courage," and when they heard him declare that he and his Frenchmen would go with them to fight the Iroquois, their threats grew less clamorous and their eyes glittered with a less deadly lustre.