The French decided to send messengers to Quebec for instructions before closing navigation cut them off for the winter. Thirteen men and one Jesuit left the fort the first week of September. Mohawk spies knew of the departure and lay in ambush at each side of the narrow river to intercept the party; but the messengers eluded the trap by striking through the forests back from the river directly to the St. Lawrence. Then the little fort closed its gates and awaited an answer from Quebec. Winter settled over the land, blocking the rivers with ice and the forest trails with drifts of snow; but no messengers came back from Quebec. The Mohawks had missed the outgoing scouts: but they caught the return coureurs and destroyed the letters. Not a soul could leave the fort but spies dogged his steps. The Jesuits continued going from lodge to lodge, and in this way Onondaga gained vague knowledge of the plots outside the fort. The French could venture out only at the risk of their lives, and spent the winter as closely confined as prisoners of war. Of the ten drilled soldiers, nine threatened to desert. One night an unseen hand plunged through the dark, seized the sentry, and dragged him from the gate. The sentry drew his sword and shouted, "To arms!" A band of Frenchmen sallied from the gates with swords and muskets. In the tussle the sentry was rescued, and gifts were sent out in the morning to pacify the wounded Mohawks. Fortunately the besieged had plenty of food inside the stockades; but the Iroquois knew there could be no escape till the ice broke up in spring, and were quite willing to exchange ample supplies of corn for tobacco and firearms. The Huron slaves who carried the corn to the fort acted as spies among the Mohawks for the French. In the month of February the vague rumors of conspiracy crystallized into terrible reality. A dying Mohawk confessed to a Jesuit that the Iroquois[4] Council had determined to massacre half the company of French and to hold the other half till their own Mohawk hostages were released from Quebec. Among the hostiles encamped before the gates was Radisson's Indian father. This Mohawk was still an influential member of the Great Council. He, too, reported that the warriors were bent on destroying Onondaga.[5] What was to be done? No answer had come from Quebec, and no aid could come till the spring. The rivers were still blocked with ice; and there were not sufficient boats in the fort to carry fifty men down to Quebec. "What could we do?" writes Radisson. "We were in their hands. It was as hard to get away from them as for a ship in full sea without a pilot."