There in the tall grass lay the bodies of his two hunting companions—scalped and murdered by the Mohawks. Now sixteen-year-old Pierre Radisson realized that he too might be a facing a similar fate.
Pierre rammed a heavy ball into his muzzle loader, and as Mohawk bullets began to whistle around him, he returned the fire. In another moment the savages were swarming over him, howling like wolves in their pleasure. He had become a captive of the Mohawks.
So begins the thrilling story of Pierre Espirit Radisson, one of the most famous of the French Canadian voyageurs, who, after years of adventure among the Indians, visited the royal courts of both France and England, and became one of the founders of the Hudson's Bay Company.
Every episode in this narrative is factual—Radisson's adoption by a Mohawk tribe; his attempt to escape, his recapture and torture. The young French Canadian actually did accompany the Mohawk war party that invaded the lands of the Eries.
Radisson and his brother-in-law, Groseilliers, were the first to explore Lake Superior to its western limits, were the first to visit the villages of the mighty Dakota Sioux, and the first to realize the enormous potential of the beaver trade. Some historians believe that they saw the Mississippi River more than a decade before Marquette and Joliet. This true story is crammed with action and adventure. But Sterling North has made it much more than a mere adventure story. He has captured here the richness of the Indian cultures Radisson came to know during his years with the Iroquois. In this book one lives again the wilderness life of three centuries ago on the unspoiled North American continent scarcely touched by the white man.
—from the dust jacket
Did you find this review helpful?