Among the Hurons of Michillimackinac there was a chief of high renown named Kondiaronk, or the Rat. He was in the prime of life, a redoubted warrior, and a sage counsellor. The French seem to have admired him greatly. "He is a gallant man," says La Hontan, "if ever there was one;" while Charlevoix declares that he was the ablest Indian the French ever knew in America, and that he had nothing of the savage but the name and the dress. In spite of the father's eulogy, the moral condition of the Rat savored strongly of the wigwam. He had given Denonville great trouble by his constant intrigues with the Iroquois, with whom he had once made a plot for the massacre of his neighbors, the Ottawas, under cover of a pretended treaty. [31] The French had spared no pains to gain him; and he had at length been induced to declare for them, under a pledge from the governor that the war should never cease till the Iroquois were destroyed. During the summer, he raised a party of forty warriors, and came down the lakes in quest of Iroquois scalps. [32] On the way, he stopped at Fort Frontenac to hear the news, when, to his amazement, the commandant told him that deputies from Onondaga were coming in a few days to conclude peace, and that he had better go home at once. [31] Nicolas Perrot, 143. [32] Denonville à Seignelay, 9 Nov., 1688. La Hontan saw the party set out, and says that there were about a hundred of them. "It is well," replied the Rat. He knew that for the Hurons it was not well. He and his tribe stood fully committed to the war, and for them peace between the French and the Iroquois would be a signal of destruction, since Denonville could not or would not protect his allies. The Rat paddled off with his warriors. He had secretly learned the route of the expected deputies; and he shaped his course, not, as he had pretended, for Michillimackinac, but for La Famine, where he knew that they would land. Having reached his destination, he watched and waited four or five days, till canoes at length appeared, approaching from the direction of Onondaga. On this, the Rat and his friends hid themselves in the bushes.