This state of feeling came near to causing the death of an innocent man. After the New World had been reached, and when the expedition was coasting along the eastern shore of the Bay of Fundy, seeking a place for a settlement, one day a party went ashore to stroll in the woods. On reassembling, a priest named Nicolas Aubry was missing. Trumpets were sounded and cannon fired from the ships. All in vain. There {107} was no reply but the echo of the ancient forest. Then suspicion fell upon a certain Huguenot with whom Aubry had often quarreled. He was accused of having killed the missing priest. In spite of his strenuous denial of the charge, many persons firmly believed him guilty. Thus matters stood for more than two weeks. One day, however, the crew of a boat that had been sent back to the neighborhood where the priest had disappeared heard a strange sound and saw a small black object in motion on the shore. Rowing nearer, they descried a man waving a hat on a stick. Imagine their surprise and joy when they recognized Aubry! He had become separated from his comrades, had lost his way, and for sixteen days of misery and terror had kept himself alive on berries and wild fruits. The place finally selected for settlement was a dreary island near the mouth of the St. Croix River, which now forms the boundary between Maine and New Brunswick. It had but one recommendation, namely, that it was admirably suited for defence, and these Frenchmen, reared in war-time, seem to have thought more of that single advantage than of the far more pressing needs of a colony. Cannon were landed, a {108} battery was built, and a fort was erected. Then buildings quickly followed, and by the autumn the whole party was well housed in its settlement, called Sainte Croix (Holy Cross). The river they named differently, but it has since borne the title of that ill-starred colony. When winter came, the island, exposed to the fierce winds blowing down the river, was fearfully cold. Ice floated by in great masses, frequently cutting off the settlers from the mainland and from their supplies of wood and water. The terror of those days, the scurvy, soon appeared, and by the spring nearly half of the seventy-nine men lay in the little cemetery. Of the survivors the greater number had no other desire than to flee from the scene of so much misery. They were cheered, however, when Pontgrave arrived from France with supplies and forty new men.