Champlain and the few Frenchmen with him, by using their arquebuses, drove the enemy back into the fort, but not without having some of their Indian allies wounded or killed.

Champlain proposed to the Hurons that they should erect what was styled in French a _cavalier_--a kind of box, with high, loopholed sides, which was erected on a tall scaffolding of stout timbers.

This was to be carried by the Hurons to within a pike's length of the stockade.

Four French arquebusiers then scrambled up into the _cavalier_ and fired through the loopholes into the huts of the Seneka town.

Meantime the Hurons were to set fire, if possible, to the wooden stockade.