Out of the French and Algonquian triumph over the Iroquois there evolved during the eighteenth century a Janus-faced alliance. Facing east, the French appeared at the head of an Algonquian host. This was the alliance armed and breathing fire in the service of imperial France, the alliance that cowed the Iroquois and repeatedly fought the far more numerous British to a standstill. This eastern face of the alliance is too often the only one that appears in histories of the eighteenth century, but by itself it is incomplete and inscrutable. To explain why Algonquian warriors responded when Onontio summoned them, it is necessary to examine the other face of the alliance. Facing west, Onontio and his chiefs – French and Algonquian –ideally carried the calumet, not the hatchet. They sought to cover the dead, not to avenge them. Onontio was a benefactor. He mediated the quarrels of his Algonquian children.