It had been no play, this fur-trade raid, and now Iberville was back from his scouting, having seen with his own eyes that the English fur traders were really wigwamming on the bay—by which the Indians meant “wintering.” Hastily, all burdens of blanket and food and clothes were cast aside and _cached_. Hastily, each raider fell to his knees invoking the blessing of Ste. Anne, patron saint of Canadian voyageur. Hastily, the Jesuit Sylvie passed from man to man absolving all sin; for these men fought with all the Spartan ferocity of the Indian fighter—that it was better to die fighting than to suffer torture in defeat. Then each man recharged his musket lest the swamp mists had dampened powder. Perhaps, Iberville reminded his bush-lopers that the Sovereign Council of Quebec had a standing offer of ten crowns reward for every enemy slain, twenty crowns for every enemy captured. Perhaps, old Chevalier de Troyes called up memories of Dollard’s fight on the Long Sault twenty years before, and warned his thirty soldiers that there was no retreat now through a thousand miles of forest. They must win or perish! Perhaps Dechesnay, the fur trader, told these wood-rovers that in at least one of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s forts were fifty-thousand crowns’ worth of beaver to be divided as spoils among the victors. De Troyes led his soldiers round the fore to make a feint of furious onslaught from the water front. Iberville posted his Indians along each flank to fire through the embrasures of the pickets. Then, with a wild yell, the French raiders swooped upon the sleeping fort. Iberville and his brothers, Ste. Hélène and Maricourt, were over the rear pickets and across the courtyard, swords in hand, before the sleepy gunner behind the main gate could get his eyes open. One blow of Ste. Hélène’s saber split the fellow’s head to the collar bone. The trunk of a tree was used to ram the main gate. Iberville’s Indians had hacked down the rear pickets, and he, himself, led the way into the house. Before the sixteen terrified inmates dashing out in their shirts had realized what was happening, the raiders were masters of Moose. Only one man besides the gunner was killed, and he was a Frenchman slain by the cross-fire of his comrades. Cellars were searched, but there was small loot. Furs were evidently stored elsewhere, but the French were the richer by sixteen captives, twelve portable cannon, and three-thousand pounds of powder. Flag unfurled, muskets firing, sod heaved in air, Chevalier de Troyes took possession of the fort for the Most Redoubtable, Most Mighty, Most Christian King of France, though a cynic might wonder how such an act was accomplished in time of peace, when the sole object of the raid had been the rescue of Monsieur Péré, imprisoned as a spy.