When Nicolet got back to Quebec, he told the missionaries there that he had been on a river which would have taken him to the sea, had he kept on as he was going but three days longer. Hearing this story, the fathers believed themselves on the eve of no less a discovery than the long-sought outlet to India. Although the Spaniards said little about the discoveries they were making on that side, they could not prevent some knowledge of what they were doing in New Mexico and on the Pacific from leaking out through the Jesuits who were themselves concerned in all these discoveries, and so were better informed than others in regard to their progress. But from the year 1640, when the missionaries so certainly thought the key to the South Sea was in their hands, on to 1650, or one whole decade, the Iroquois gave the French and their allies other work to do at home. Hardly could the French consider themselves safe in their fort at Montreal, much less venture abroad upon new schemes of discovery. In vain the missionaries cried out upon the Iroquois as the great scourge of Christianity. In vain the elements were invoked to destroy them. The heathen were at the doors of their monasteries, the Dutch[9] were behind the Iroquois, urging them on, and the future of New France looked gloomy indeed. [Illustration: TOTEM OF THE FOXES.] Finally (1650) the Iroquois carried the war into the heart of the Huron country itself. The Hurons fought well, but were soon overpowered and driven from their villages into perpetual exile. Some fled to the east, some to the west, thereby becoming so thoroughly dispersed as never more to be a united nation. With brief periods of cessation from active warfare, which were rather truces than peace, war raged until 1661, and as the Iroquois now commanded all the routes to the west, the French were effectually shut out from the Great Lakes for the time being. [Illustration: FRENCH COSTUMES.]