Indeed, during the year just described there were not wanting indications, early in the spring of 1654, of the renewal of hostilities, when a young surgeon engaged in setting his beaver traps was carried off in a canoe by the lurking Onondaga Indians. In the beginning of May a band of the same Iroquois, who had not heard of this act of perfidy, were well received when coming for trade and they sent a canoe back for the stolen man. In the meantime, about seven hundred Hurons descended to Montreal with thirteen Iroquois captives made on the journey down. These were given to the Iroquois captain, who remained as a hostage till the canoe returned, in the hope of making peace. Soon the surgeon was brought back with a delegation, bearing twenty necklaces of wampum as signs of peace from the Iroquois nation. [Illustration: SANS MERCI (By Hébert)] One of the significant gifts was to recognize and consolidate the position of Ville Marie as the headquarters of peace treaties, which had been lately so constituted by the governor of Quebec, who had transferred to Montreal the treaty pole which had been erected at Quebec in the autumn of 1653 as a sign of peace. Its position at Montreal signified the recognized place for parley councils for peace overtures. This was an adroit move on the part of de Lauson. It recognized that Montreal was the frontier post and the most accessible, and also it was a standing eulogium of the diplomatic ability of de Maisonneuve to deal with the natives, and it might keep the enemy higher up the river away from Quebec. Unfortunately, as we have said, these Iroquois were divided into five nations, who often acted without concert, so that protestations of peace by wampum belts had always to be taken for what they were worth. Montreal was soon to be in daily dread of assault. Thus in the autumn, when in fancied security, owing to the recent renewal of peace, the ordinary precautions were being neglected at Montreal in the busy building and farming operations, a band of Iroquois were in ambuscade around. The sentinel was standing on a tree stump, leisurely surveying the country around, when an Iroquois who had stealthily approached, hiding at intervals behind other stumps, suddenly pounced upon him and seizing him by the legs, threw him over his shoulders and set off in flight with the bewildered soldier shrieking for his life and fighting as best he could. His cries aroused the men in the field and they pursued them until they came up to the Iroquois band with their chief at their head. They would have fared badly had not Lambert Closse come up with his men. Recognizing the chief, who was known by the French as "La Barrique," or "The Hogshead," because of his barrel-like corpulency, he ordered one of his best shots cautiously to get within fighting distance, and pick him off.