There was no more trouble with the English, but this colony came very near being swept away by the Natch´ez Indians, who made an agreement with the Choc´taws to fall upon the white men on a certain day and hour, and kill them all. To make sure that there should be no misunderstanding, each chief was given a small bundle of sticks, with directions to burn one every day, making the attack only after the last had been consumed. An Indian boy, seeing his father burn one of these sticks, stole two, and secretly set fire to them; and though he thus found out that they were nothing but ordinary wood, his theft made his father attack the French two days too soon. Instead of a general raid upon all the settlements, only one was surprised, two hundred men being killed, and the women and children carried off into captivity. The other French colonists had time to arm, and they defended themselves so bravely that the plans of the Indians came to naught. XLIX. INDIANS ON THE WARPATH. The French were in possession of Acadia, New France, and Louisiana. The immense tract of land drained by the St. Lawrence and Mississippi rivers was rich in fur-bearing animals, whose pelts were brought by Indians and trappers to the missions and trading posts. There they were loaded in canoes and floated down the Lakes and the St. Lawrence, or down the Mississippi, so as to be shipped to France from Quebec and New Orleans. You might think that the French would have been satisfied with all they had, but they were not. They longed to control the Hudson also, which they claimed for France, because they said Verrazano had first visited New York Bay. Besides, Champlain had come within a few miles of where Albany now stands, shortly before Hudson sailed up the river bearing his name. Longing for an excuse to drive the English away from the Hudson valley, the French were glad when war was declared, in 1689. Their king sent over Count Frontenac to be governor of Canada again, and to lead in the struggle with the English. Frontenac was a good general, and had much influence over the Indians. He is said to have joined in their war dances and athletic sports, in spite of his old age, and to have boasted of the tortures he meant to inflict on his English foes and their Iroquois allies.