They shone dully in
the mean light. Here and there a comparatively new uniform brightened
the rank and file. They had been here for more than a year, and the
seventeenth of May, the historic date of their departure from Quebec,
seemed far away. Few and far between were the notes which came to
their ears from the old world, the world they all hoped to see again
some day. The drill was a brave sight; for the men went through their
manoeuvers with all the pomp of the king's musketeers. A crowd of
savages looked on, still awed. But some of the Onondagas laughed or
smiled. There was something going on at the Long House in the hills
which these Frenchmen knew nothing about. And other warriors watched
the scene with the impassiveness of a spider who sees a fly moving
toward the web.
The pioneers were hardy men; that some wore skins of beasts, ragged
silks and velvets which had once upon a time aired themselves among the
fashionable in Paris, and patched and faded uniforms, mattered but
little. They were men; and even the Iroquois were impressed by this
fact more than any other. Du Puys and Nicot saw that there was no
slipshod work; for while the drilling was at present only for show and
to maintain awe, the discipline would prove effective in time of need.
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