They desired an
alliance with the Ottawas. I remembered Longuant's speech, and his
indicated policy of casting his strength with the winning side, and I
thought it probable they would succeed.
And if they succeeded? Well, Cadillac had his two hundred regulars.
Yet he could not hope to win, and he would do what he could to hold off
the necessity of trying. He would not dare seize the Senecas. No, the
league of the Long House had won. Their braves could sit in our
garrison at their leisure and exchange peace belts with our Indians
under our eyes. I set my teeth and wondered what part Starling had
played in it all. He had grown curiously at ease when he had found
himself in an Iroquois camp. I had no choice but to believe that
Pemaou had tricked and deceived him, as he had said, but that did not
mean that he had not been in league with Pemaou in the beginning.
Pemaou was capable of tricking a confederate. No Englishman
understands an Indian, and if he had patronized Pemaou the Huron would
have retaliated in just this way. I grew sick with the maze of my
thought. But one thing I grasped. With part of the Senecas in the
French camp, we Frenchmen would be spared for a time. We would be
convenient for exchange, or to exact terms of compromise.
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