“Now I have become confused,” Verrieul said. “But in spite of what you say, Captain Huff—or maybe not in spite of it—I don’t know which—James Deane is no buzzard. It is true, though, that after he had spent some years with the Oneidas, it was with great difficulty he was persuaded to come to Hanover with the Revrint Dr. Wheelock. The sachem of St. Francis, Joseph Gill: he was a white captive, and so was his wife. He’s a wise man—no buzzard at all; but he wouldn’t go back to live with white people, nor his wife either; by no means! In Dartmouth there are three from Caughnawaga, all grandchildren of white captives who would never go back among white people—the grandson of Mr. Stacy from Ipswich, the grandson of Mr. Tarbull from Groton, and the grandson of Eunice Williams from Deerfield.”

Cap Huff tapped me on the knee. “You don’t want to take too much stock in what he says, Cap’n Peter.” He eyed Verrieul indignantly. “You’re like all the rest of these friends of the Indians! Ask ’em something straightforward and honest about the red weasels, and they tell you everything but what you want to know. All I want to know is which of these red buzzards we’ll have to fight; all I get is a lot of yap about white men that want to be Irryquartz or Onudders!”

That was Cap Huff’s way when the talk turned on Indians. He would ask for information about them; but it seemed impossible for him to believe anything he heard, or even to listen to the information for which he asked. It was plain that Verrieul would have answered Cap’s questions as well as he could if Cap had let him; but the more Verrieul tried, the louder Cap grumbled, so that Verrieul finally had to give it up.

… Thanks to our blanket sails and a fair wind, we camped that night on Isle La Motte, near the Canadian end of the lake, not only to rest our cramped muscles, but also to pitch our canoes once more; for the constant movement of these large canoes cracks off the pitch, so that they must be re-pitched each day.

We were eager to get forward. Our pork was gone; there wasn’t enough corn meal among all of us to nourish a chickadee, and the fish Zelph cooked for us were watery and tasteless. So we were restless and up with the false dawn, and afloat soon after, hastening north between rocky shores that drew constantly closer together, and watching for the supply-boats of which Cap had learned.