To this place they were accompanied by the actors in this tragedy to the number of three hundred and fifty fighting men,[26] and he would now, under the protection of Wawetum, have been safe from immediate peril, but that in a few days a prize of two canoes of merchandise in the hands of English traders was made, amongst which was a large quantity of liquor. Hereupon, Wawetum, foreseeing another carousal, and always fearful of his friend, requested him to go up with him to the mountain part of the island. Having ascended it, he led him to this cave, and recommended him to abide here in concealment until the debauch was over, when he promised to visit him. [26] Henry, p. 109. Breaking some branches at its mouth for a bed, he then sought its recesses, and spreading his blanket around, laid down and slept till morning. Daylight revealed to him the fact that he had been reposing on dry human bones, and that the cave had anciently been devoted by the Indians as a sepulchre. On announcing this fact to his deliverer, two days afterward, when he came to seek him, Wawetum expressed his ignorance of it, and a party of the Indians, who came to examine it in consequence of the announcement, also concurred in declaring that they had no tradition on the subject. They conjectured that the bones were either due to the period when the sea covered the earth--which is a common belief with them--or to the period of the Huron occupancy of this island, after that tribe were defeated by the Iroquois, in the St. Lawrence valley. So much for tradition.