"A young officer named Daulac, who was in command of the garrison at Montreal, proposed to entrap them on their way down the Ottawa and fight them. Sixteen young fellows from Montreal volunteered to go with him. They did not know much about canoeing, for they were a whole week in attempting to pass the swift current at St. Anne, at the head of the Island of Montreal. In the meantime they were overtaken by forty Hurons and several Christian Algonquins. When they saw the rushing, foaming waters of the Sault they decided to go no farther, for they knew that the Iroquois were sure to pass there. He pointed out a spot just below the rapids, where the woods slope gently down to the shore, where an old Algonquin palisade fort stood. 'It was,' he said, 'a mere enclosure of trunks of trees planted in a circle.' In a few days they saw two Iroquois canoes coming down the Sault. Daulac and his men hid behind the bushes and, as they landed, shot all but one, who escaped and fled through the forest to the main body. "'Suddenly,' said the priest, 'a fleet of canoes filled with Iroquois came bounding down the rapids. Soon as they landed they smashed the bark canoes of the French, and, kindling the bark, ran up to set fire to the palisade. Three times they attempted to storm the little fort, but were driven back by the deadly fire of the small garrison. Their rage was unbounded. They sent word to five hundred of their tribe, who were camped at the mouth of the Richelieu, to come to their aid. This so frightened the Hurons that they deserted and betrayed the smallness of their force to the enemy, who advanced with yells, firing as they came on. But again they had to fall back, owing to the deadly fire of the French. The latter held out for three days, and the Iroquois were on the verge of giving up the siege when they resolved to make one last attempt. They made large, heavy shields, four or five feet high, by lashing together three split logs fastened together with cross bars. Under cover of these they advanced, reached the palisade, and, crouching below the range of shot, hewed furiously with their axes until they cut their way through. Daulac filled a large musketoon with powder, and after plugging up the muzzle attached a fuse, and tried to throw it over the palisade, but it fell back among the French and exploded, killing and wounding several and blinding others. "'In the confusion that followed the Iroquois got possession. All was soon over. Daulac was the first killed, and a burst of triumphant yells went up from the savages. Five of the heroic defenders escaped and brought the news to Montreal. It proved the salvation of our French colonists in Canada,' continued the priest, 'for they felt that if seventeen white men could hold seven hundred warriors at bay so long in an old palisade like that, there would be no chance of capturing walled towns like Quebec and Montreal.'"