Fifty pages of Champlain’s minute and wonderfully illustrated account testify to the fact that he was not idle during the winter months. He records many interesting customs of his Indian hosts. He watched their deer-hunts, visited their villages and those of neighboring tribes, was umpire in their disputes, and at last turned his face homeward in the early spring. With him went Darontal, his Huron host. At Quebec Champlain was welcomed as one risen from the dead, for the Indians had long since brought in word that he had been killed. A solemn service was held, and all united in rendering thanks to God for protecting the travellers in their many perils and dangers. Upon this service and the various acts of welcome Darontal gazed in bewildered astonishment. Champlain showed him all the marvellous details of civilization. With the usual Indian stolidity he observed everything carefully and calmly; but at last his wonder broke down his reserve. Before he departed he told Champlain that he should never die contented until he had told his friends of the French way of living and seen them adopt it. With valuable presents and a warm invitation to come again with some of his friends, Darontal paddled back to his lodge in the woods with a story that must have taken months in the telling. This was Champlain’s last long trip of exploration. For the remaining years of his life the needs of the colony at Quebec held him fast. His writings, sold in the book-stalls of France, inspired others to cross the seas and to continue the exploration and settlement of the wilderness. CHAPTER III THE JESUIT MISSION TO THE HURONS From 1615, when Father Joseph Le Caron celebrated the first mass among the Hurons, for fourteen years a few intrepid priests braved the difficulties of savage life, and endeavored at various times to set up missions in the populous Huron villages south of Georgian Bay. They suffered almost incredible hardships, and in 1629 Jean Brébeuf was the only one who was left in the region. He was recalled to Quebec, but five years later, a year before Champlain’s death, he set out with two Jesuit companions to found, in the villages where Champlain had wintered eighteen years before, the greatest Jesuit mission in the history of New France.