Big Mouth entertained some of the French officers at a feast, which he opened for them by dancing an Indian dance. There was another council in the afternoon, and the terms of peace were settled upon in the evening. These terms were in the usual form of Indian treaties. A “word” of the Iroquois was answered by a “word” of the French accepting it, and all disputed points were taken up in a series of such “words.” The Iroquois offered to the French a beverage devoid of bitterness to purify whatever inconvenience they had experienced on their voyage, and to dispel whatever bad air they had breathed between Montreal and this council fire,--a beverage of which the malarial French were certainly in dire need. They reminded the French of the deep ditch dug the year before, into which all unkind things that might occur were to be cast, and requested the French to throw into it the Seneca robbery, to which the French agreed. Again the tree of peace was set up, each side solemnly adjuring the other to sustain and strengthen it. The French agreed to depart at once, and then,--and not till then,--did the Iroquois consent to renew the former treaty, “dispelling all the clouds that had obscured the Sun from their sight.” Thus ended the grand expedition of La Barre. No real satisfaction had been gained by the French, but a weak truce had been made, and the Iroquois had taken the opportunity to assert boldly their independence of French and English alike, whom they treated as invaders of their rightful possessions. Big Mouth and his men returned to their homes, and the French set out for Montreal. The few healthy men that remained manned the General’s canoes and took charge of the flat-bottomed boats in which the soldiers were carried. Of the dangers attendant on shooting the rapids in these boats one of the soldiers draws a vivid picture, declaring that he and his companions wished themselves back in the canoes that had brought them up, when they shot down such precipices of water as had never been heard of before. The main current wound its way in and out past eddies and rocks, dashing along as fast as a cannon ball, and the men steered as well as they could along this zigzag course, knowing that a false stroke of the oar would send them upon the rocks. But in spite of the discomfort and the danger, this soldier confesses from the safe shelter of Montreal that, though the risk was very great, “yet, by way of compensation one had the satisfaction of running a great way in a very short time.” And he closes with a word of sympathy for La Barre. “All the world blames our General for his bad success.... The people here are busy in wafting to court a thousand calumnies against him.... But after all the poor man could do no more than he did.” PART II THE STRUGGLE FOR POSSESSION CHAPTER VIII THE FOUNDING OF DETROIT