Taking no chances, they tied him to the cross bar of a canoe when the party set off for the Indian village many miles distant. On the fourth day he was released from the cross bar, and being given a paddle, entered with zest into the work of helping onward the canoe. He was a cheerful lad, and the Indians, instead of allowing him to work himself out in his awkward manner, taught him how to give the light feather strokes of the true canoe man. He, in turn, took his share of the burdens, and was always eager to help. Their village was near Lake George in what is now New York State, and there they prepared to make merry with their captives and their plunder. He had to run the gauntlet of the braves, and was so successful that he was sought for adoption by a captive Huron squaw who had been adopted by the tribe. She pleaded for his life before the Great Council and was allowed to take him as her son. He was now a Mohawk of the Iroquois nation. Watching his opportunity, and with an Algonquin captive, they made their escape, after killing three of the Mohawks; and after wandering many days, they were within sight of Three Rivers when the Iroquois overtook them, killed the Algonquin, and Radisson was again a prisoner. He was recognized and subjected to tortures, his thumb being thrust into a pipe of live coals, and the soles of both feet burned. Still worse was in store for him, but his adopted father, a chief among them, and his adopted mother, purchased his freedom by a recital of their own deeds of valour and by gifts of wampum. This seventeen year old lad seemingly had won the hearts of all. He accompanied them on their expeditions and visited the lodges of the Oneidas, Onondagas, Senecas, and Cayugas in their wanderings about what is now known as the Niagara district. Indeed, he won the confidence of his Mohawk friends to such an extent that they took him with them when they visited the white man’s village of Orange (Albany), and he justified their confidence by returning with them, even though the Dutch offered to pay a great ransom to free him. He wanted to make himself free and was ever on the alert for the suitable moment. It came in 1653, and alone he made his way back to Orange after many hair-breadth escapes. Here he was befriended—indeed he seemed always and everywhere to make friends—by a Jesuit priest who gave him enough money to enable him to sail down the Hudson to New York, whence he took boat for Amsterdam, which he reached in 1654, and thence he made his way home to France. This adventure I have dwelt upon in some detail, because it is an illustration in miniature of his eventful life. One would think there had been enough crowded into these months to suffice for a life time, but the lure of the West was upon him, and his relatives, like himself, had gone overseas.