M. RADISSON BEGINS THE GAME
M. Radisson had reckoned well. His warning to prepare for instant
siege set all the young fire-eaters of our Habitation working like
beavers to complete the French fort. The marquis took a hand at
squaring timbers shoulder to shoulder with Allemand, the pilot; and La
Chesnaye, the merchant prince, forgot to strut while digging up
earthworks for a parapet. The leaven of the New World was working.
Honour was for him only whose brawn won the place; and our young
fellows of the birth and the pride were keenest to gird for the task.
On our return from the upper river to the fort, the palisaded walls
were finished, guns were mounted on all bastions, the two ships beached
under shelter of cannon, sentinels on parade at the main gate, and a
long barracks built mid-way across the courtyard.
Here we passed many a merry hour of a long winter night, the green
timbers cracking like pistol-shots to the tightening frost-grip, and
the hearth logs at each end of the long, low-raftered hall sending up a
roar that set the red shadows dancing among ceiling joists. After
ward-room mess, with fare that kings might have envied--teal and
partridge and venison and a steak of beaver's tail, and moose nose as
an _entrée_, with a tidbit of buffalo hump that melted in your mouth
like flakes--the commonalty, as La Chesnaye designated those who sat
below the salt, would draw off to the far hearth. Here the sailors
gathered close, spinning yarns, cracking jokes, popping corn, and
toasting wits, a-merrier far that your kitchen cuddies of older lands.
At the other hearth sat M. de Radisson, feet spread to the fire, a long
pipe between his lips, and an audience of young blades eager for his
tales.
"D'ye mind how we got away from the Iroquois, Chouart?" Radisson asks
Groseillers, who sits in a chair rough-hewn from a stump on the other
side of the fire.
Chouart Groseillers smiles quietly and strokes his black beard. Jean
stretches across a bear-skin on the floor and shouts out, "Tell us!
Tell us!"
"We had been captives six months. The Iroquois were beginning to let
us wander about alone. Chouart there had sewed his thumb up, where an
old squaw had hacked at it with a dull shell. The padre's nails, which
the Indians tore off in torture, had grown well enough for him to
handle a gun. One day we were allowed out to hunt. Chouart brought
down three deer, the padre two moose, and I a couple of bear. That
night the warriors came back from a raid on Orange with not a thing to
eat but one miserable, little, thin, squealing pig. Pardieu! men,
'twas our chance; and the chance is always hiding round a corner for
the man who goes ahead."
Radisson paused to whiff his pipe, all the lights in his eyes laughing
and his mouth expressionless as steel.
"'Tis an insult among Iroquois to leave food at a feast. There were we
with food enough to stuff the tribe torpid as winter toads. The padre
was sent round to the lodges with a tom-tom to beat every soul to the
feast. Chouart and a Dutch prisoner and I cooked like kings' scullions
for four mortal hours!--"
"We wanted to delay the feast till midnight," explains Groseillers.
"And at midnight in trooped every man, woman, and brat of the
encampment. The padre takes a tom-tom and stands at one end of the
lodge beating a very knave of a rub-a-dub and shouting at the top of
his voice: 'Eat, brothers, eat! Bulge the eye, swell the coat, loose
the belt! Eat, brothers, eat!' Chouart stands at the boiler ladling
out joints faster than an army could gobble. Within an hour every brat
lay stretched and the women were snoring asleep where they crouched.
From the warriors, here a grunt, there a groan! But Chouart keeps
ladling out the meat. Then the Dutchman grabs up a drum at the other
end of the lodge, and begins to beat and yell: 'Stuff, brudders, stuff!
Vat de gut zperets zend, gast not out! Eat, braves, eat!' And the
padre cuts the capers of a fiend on coals. Still the warriors eat!
Still the drums beat! Still the meat is heaped! Then, one brave bowls
over asleep with his head on his knees! Another warrior tumbles back!
Guards sit bolt upright sound asleep as a stone!"
"What did you put in the meat, Pierre?" asked Groseillers absently.
Radisson laughed.
"Do you mind, Chouart," he asked, "how the padre wanted to put poison
in the meat, and the Dutchman wouldn't let him? Then the Dutchman
wanted to murder them all in their sleep, and the padre wouldn't let
him?"
Both men laughed.
"And the end?" asked Jean.
"We tied the squealing pig at the door for sentinel, broke ice with our
muskets, launched the canoe, and never stopped paddling till we reached
Three Rivers." [1]
At that comes a loud sally of laughter from the sailors at the far end
of the hall. Godefroy, the English trader, is singing a rhyme of All
Souls' Day, and Allemand, the French pilot, protests.
"Soul! Soul! For a soul-cake!
One for Peter, two for Paul,
Three for----."
But La Chesnaye shouts out for the knaves to hold quiet. Godefroy bobs
his tipstaff, and bawls on:
"Soul! Soul! For an apple or two!
If you've got no apples, nuts will do!
Out with your raisins, down with your gin!
Give me plenty and I'll begin."
M. Radisson looks down the hall and laughs. "By the saints," says he
softly, "a man loses the Christian calendar in this land! 'Tis All
Souls' Night! Give the men a treat, La Chesnaye."
But La Chesnaye, being governor, must needs show his authority, and
vows to flog the knave for impudence. Turning over benches in his
haste, the merchant falls on Godefroy with such largesse of cuffs that
the fellow is glad to keep peace.
The door blows open, and with a gust of wind a silent figure blows in.
'Tis Le Borgne, the one-eyed, who has taken to joining our men of a
merry night, which M. de Radisson encourages; for he would have all the
Indians come freely.
"Ha!" says Radisson, "I thought 'twas the men I sent to spy if the
marsh were safe crossing. Give Le Borgne tobacco, La Chesnaye. If
once the fellow gets drunk," he adds to me in an undertone, "that
silent tongue of his may wag on the interlopers. We must be stirring,
stirring, Ramsay! Ten days past! Egad, a man might as well be a
fish-worm burrowing underground as such a snail! We must stir--stir!
See here"--drawing me to the table apart from the others--"here we are
on the lower river," and he marked the letter X on a line indicating
the flow of our river to the bay. "Here is the upper river," and he
drew another river meeting ours at a sharp angle. "Here is Governor
Brigdar of the Hudson's Bay Company," marking another X on the upper
river. "Here is Ben Gillam! We are half-way between them on the
south. I sent two men to see if the marsh between the rivers is fit
crossing."
[Illustration: Radisson's map.]
"Fit crossing?"
"When 'tis safe, we might plan a surprise. The only doubt is how many
of those pirates are there who attacked you in the woods?"
And he sat back whiffing his pipe and gazing in space. By this, La
Chesnaye had distributed so generous a treat that half the sailors were
roaring out hilarious mirth. Godefroy astride a bench played big drum
on the wrong-end-up of the cook's dish-pan. Allemand attempted to
fiddle a poker across the tongs. Voyageurs tried to shoot the big
canoe over a waterfall; for when Jean tilted one end of the long bench,
they landed as cleanly on the floor as if their craft had plunged. But
the copper-faced Le Borgne remained taciturn and tongue-tied.
"Be curse to that wall-eyed knave," muttered Radisson. "He's too deep
a man to let go! We must capture him or win him!"
"Perhaps when he becomes more friendly we may track him back to the
inlanders," I suggested.
M. de Radisson closed one eye and looked at me attentively.
"La Chesnaye," he called, "treat that fellow like a king!"
And the rafters rang so loud with the merriment that we none of us
noticed the door flung open, nor saw two figures stamping off the snow
till they had thrown a third man bound at M. de Radisson's feet. The
messengers sent to spy out the marsh had returned with a half-frozen
prisoner.
"We found him where the ice is soft. He was half dead," explained one
scout.
Silence fell. Through the half-dark the Indian glided towards the
door. The unconscious prisoner lay face down.
"Turn him over," ordered Radisson.
As our men rolled him roughly over, the captive uttered a heavy groan.
His arms fell away from his face revealing little Jack Battle, the
castaway, in a haven as strange as of old.
"Search him before he wakes," commanded Radisson roughly.
"Let me," I asked.
In the pouches of the caribou coat was only pemmican; but my hand
crushed against a softness in the inner waistcoat. I pulled it out--a
little, old glove, the colour Hortense had dangled the day that Ben
Gillam fell into the sea.
"Pish!" says Radisson. "Anything else?"
There crumpled out a yellow paper. M. Radisson snatched it up.
"Pish!" says he, "nothing--put it back!"
It was a page of my copy-book, when I used to take lessons with
Rebecca. Replacing paper and glove, I closed up the sailor lad's coat.
"Search his cap and moccasins!"
I was mighty thankful, as you may guess, that other hands than mine
found the tell-tale missive--a badly writ letter addressed to "Captain
Zechariah Gillium."
Tearing it open, M. Radisson read with stormy lights agleam in his eyes.
"Sir, this sailor lad is an old comrade," I pleaded.
"Then'a God's name take care of him," he flashed out.
But long before I had Jack Battle thawed back to consciousness in my
own quarters, Jean came running with orders for me to report to M.
Radisson.
"I'll take care of the sailor for you," proffered Jean.
And I hastened to the main hall.
"Get ready," ordered Radisson. "We must stir! That young
hop-o'-my-thumb suspects his father has arrived. He has sent this
fellow with word of me. Things will be doing. We must stir--we must
stir. Read those for news," and he handed me the letter.
The letter was addressed to Ben's father, of the Hudson's Bay ship,
Prince Rupert. In writing which was scarcely legible, it ran:
I take Up my Pen to lett You knowe that cutt-throte
french viper Who deserted You at ye fort of ye bay 10 Years
ago hath come here for France Threatening us.
he Must Be Stopped. Will i Do It?
have Bin Here Come Six weekes All Souls' day and Not
Heard a Word of Him that went inland to Catch ye Furs
from ye Savages before they Mett Governor B----. If He
Proves False----
There the crushed missive was torn, but the purport was plain. Ben
Gillam and his father were in collusion with the inland pirates to get
peltries from the Indians before Governor Brigdar came; and the
inlanders, whoever they were, had concealed both themselves and the
furs. I handed the paper back to M. Radisson.
"We must stir, lad--we must stir," he repeated.
"But the marsh is soft yet. It is unsafe to cross."
"The river is not frozen in mid-current," retorted M. Radisson
impatiently. "Get ready! I am taking different men to impress the
young spark with our numbers--you and La Chesnaye and the marquis and
Allemand. But where a' devil is that Indian?"
Le Borgne had slipped away.
"Is he a spy?" I asked.
"Get ready! Why do you ask questions? The thing is--to
do!--do!!--do--!!!"
But Allemand, who had been hauling out the big canoe, came up sullenly.
"Sir," he complained, "the river's running ice the size of a raft, and
the wind's a-blowing a gale."
"Man," retorted M. de Radisson with the quiet precision of steel, "if
the river were running live fire and the gale blew from the inferno,
I--would--go! Stay home and go to bed, Allemand." And he chose one of
the common sailors instead.
And when we walked out to the thick edge of the shore-ice and launched
the canoe among a whirling drift of ice-pans, we had small hope of ever
seeing Fort Bourbon again. The ice had not the thickness of the spring
jam, but it was sharp enough to cut our canoe, and we poled our way far
oftener than we paddled. Where the currents of the two rivers joined,
the wind had whipped the waters to a maelstrom. The night was
moonless. It was well we did not see the white turmoil, else M.
Radisson had had a mutiny on his hands. When the canoe leaped to the
throb of the sucking currents like a cataract to the plunge, La
Chesnaye clapped his pole athwart and called out a curse on such
rashness. M. Radisson did not hear or did not heed. An ice-pan
pitched against La Chesnaye's place, and the merchant must needs thrust
out to save himself.
The only light was the white glare of ice. The only guide across that
heaving traverse, the unerring instinct of that tall figure at the bow,
now plunging forward, now bracing back, now shouting out a "Steady!"
that the wind carried to our ears, thrusting his pole to right, to left
in lightning strokes, till the canoe suddenly darted up the roaring
current of the north river.
Here we could no longer stem both wind and tide. M. Radisson ordered
us ashore for rest. Fourteen days were we paddling, portaging,
struggling up the north river before we came in range of the Hudson's
Bay fort built by Governor Brigdar.
Our proximity was heralded by a low laugh from M. de Radisson. "Look,"
said he, "their ship aground in mud a mile from the fort. In case of
attack, their forces will be divided. It is well," said M. Radisson.
The Prince Rupert lay high on the shallows, fast bound in the freezing
sands. Hiding our canoe in the woods, we came within hail and called.
There was no answer.
"Drunk or scurvy," commented M. Radisson. "An faith, Ramsay, 'twould
be an easy capture if we had big enough fort to hold them all!"
Shaping his hands to a trumpet, he shouted, "How are you, there?"
As we were turning away a fellow came scrambling up the fo'castle and
called back: "A little better, but all asleep."
"A good time for us to examine the fort," said M. de Radisson.
Aloud, he answered that he would not disturb the crew, and he wheeled
us off through the woods.
"See!" he observed, as we emerged in full view of the stockaded fur
post, "palisades nailed on from the inside--easily pushed loose from
the outside. Pish!--low enough for a dog to jump."
Posting us in ambush, he advanced to the main edifice behind the
wide-open gate. I saw him shaking hands with the Governor of the
Hudson's Bay Company, who seemed on the point of sallying out to hunt.
Then he signalled for us to come. I had almost concluded he meant to
capture Governor Brigdar on the spot; but Pierre Radisson ever took
friends and foes unawares.
"Your Excellency," says he, with the bow of a courtier, "this is
Captain Gingras of our new ship."
Before I had gathered my wits, Governor Brigdar was shaking hands.
"And this," continued Radisson, motioning forward the common sailor too
quick for surprise to betray us, "this, Your Excellency, is Colonel
Bienville of our marines."
Colonel Bienville, being but a lubberly fellow, nigh choked with
amazement at the English governor's warmth; but before we knew our
leader's drift, the marquis and La Chesnaye were each in turn presented
as commanders of our different land forces.
"'Tis the misfortune of my staff not to speak English," explains Pierre
Radisson suavely with another bow, which effectually shut any of our
mouths that might have betrayed him.
"Doubtless your officers know Canary better than English," returns
Governor Brigdar; and he would have us all in to drink healths.
"Keep your foot in the open door," Pierre Radisson whispered as we
passed into the house.
Then we drank the health of the King of England, firing our muskets
into the roof; and drank to His Most Christian Majesty of France with
another volley; and drank to the confusion of our common enemies, with
a clanking of gun-butts that might have alarmed the dead. Upon which
Pierre Radisson protested that he would not keep Governor Brigdar from
the hunt; and we took our departure.
"And now," said he, hastening through the bush, "as no one took fright
at all that firing, what's to hinder examining the ship?"
"Pardieu, Ramsay," he remarked, placing us in ambush again, "an we had
a big enough fort, with food to keep them alive, we might have bagged
them all."
From which I hold that M. Radisson was not so black a man as he has
been painted; for he could have captured the English as they lay weak
of the scurvy and done to them, for the saving of fort rations, what
rivals did to all foes--shot them in a land which tells no secrets.
From our place on the shore we saw him scramble to the deck. A man in
red nightcap rushed forward with an oath.
"And what might you want, stealing up like a thief in the night?"
roared the man.
"To offer my services, Captain Gillam," retorted Radisson with a hand
to his sword-hilt and both feet planted firm on the deck.
"Services?" bawled Gillam.
"Services for your crew, captain," interrupted Radisson softly.
"Hm!" retorted Captain Gillam, pulling fiercely at his grizzled beard.
"Then you might send a dozen brace o' partridges, some oil, and
candles."
With that they fell to talking in lower tones; and M. Radisson came
away with quiet, unspoken mirth in his eyes, leaving Captain Gillam in
better mood.
"Curse me if he doesn't make those partridges an excuse to go back
soon," exclaimed La Chesnaye. "The ship would be of some value; but
why take the men prisoners? Much better shoot them down as they would
us, an they had the chance!"
"La Chesnaye!" uttered a sharp voice. Radisson had heard. "There are
two things I don't excuse a fool for--not minding his own business and
not holding his tongue."
And though La Chesnaye's money paid for the enterprise, he held his
tongue mighty still. Indeed, I think if any tongue had wagged twice in
Radisson's hearing he would have torn the offending member out. Doing
as we were bid without question, we all filed down to the canoe. Less
ice cumbered the upper current, and by the next day we were opposite
Ben Gillam's New England fort.
"La Chesnaye and Forêt will shoot partridges," commanded M. de
Radisson. Leaving them on the far side of the river, he bade the
sailor and me paddle him across to young Gillam's island.
What was our surprise to see every bastion mounted with heavy guns and
the walls full manned. We took the precaution of landing under shelter
of the ship and fired a musket to call out sentinels. Down ran Ben
Gillam and a second officer, armed cap-a-pie, with swaggering insolence
that they took no pains to conceal.
"Congratulate you on coming in the nick of time," cried Ben.
"Now what in the Old Nick does he mean by that?" said Radisson. "Does
the cub think to cower me with his threats?"
"I trust your welcome includes my four officers," he responded. "Two
are with me and two have gone for partridges."
Ben bellowed a jeering laugh, and his second man took the cue.
"Your four officers may be forty devils," yelled the lieutenant; "we've
finished our fort. Come in, Monsieur Radisson! Two can play at the
game of big talk! You're welcome in if you leave your forty officers
out!"
For the space of a second M. Radisson's eyes swept the cannon pointing
from the bastion embrasures. We were safe enough. The full hull of
their own ship was between the guns and us.
"Young man," said M. Radisson, addressing Ben, "you may speak less
haughtily, as I come in friendship."
"Friendship!" flouted Ben, twirling his mustache and showing both rows
of teeth. "Pooh, pooh, M. Radisson! You are not talking to a
stripling!"
"I had thought I was--and a very fool of a booby, too," answered M.
Radisson coolly.
"Sir!" roared young Gillam with a rumbling of oaths, and he fumbled his
sword.
But his sword had not left the scabbard before M. de Radisson sent it
spinning through mid-air into the sea.
"I must ask your forgiveness for that, boy," said the Frenchman to Ben,
"but a gentleman fights only his equals."
Ben Gillam went white and red by turns, his nose flushing and paling
like the wattle of an angry turkey; and he stammered out that he hoped
M. de Radisson did not take umbrage at the building of a fort.
"We must protect ourselves from the English," pleaded Ben.
"Pardieu, yes," agreed M. de Radisson, proffering his own sword with a
gesture in place of the one that had gone into the sea, "and I had come
to offer you twenty men _to hold_ the fort!"
Ben glanced questioningly to his second officer.
"Bid that fellow draw off!" ordered M. Radisson.
Dazed like a man struck between the eyes, Ben did as he was commanded.
"I told you that I came in friendship," began Radisson.
Gillam waited.
"Have you lost a man, Ben?"
"No," boldly lied Gillam.
"Has one run away from the island against orders?"
"No, devil take me, if I've lost a hand but the supercargo that I
killed."
"I had thought that was yours," said Radisson, with contempt for the
ruffian's boast; and he handed out the paper taken from Jack.
Ben staggered back with a great oath, vowing he would have the scalp of
the traitor who lost that letter. Both stood silent, each
contemplating the other. Then M. Radisson spoke.
"Ben," said he, never taking his glance from the young fellow's face,
"what will you give me if I guide you to your father this afternoon? I
have just come from Captain Gillam. He and his crew are ill of the
scurvy. Dress as a coureur and I pass you for a Frenchman."
"My father!" cried Ben with his jaws agape and his wits at sea.
"Pardieu--yes, I said your father!"
"What do you want in return?" stammered Ben.
Radisson uttered a laugh that had the sound of sword-play.
"Egad, 'tis a hot supper I'd like better than anything else just now!
If you feed us well and disguise yourself as a coureur, I'll take you
at sundown!"
And in spite of his second officer's signals, Ben Gillam hailed us
forthwith to the fort, where M. Radisson's keen eyes took in every
feature of door and gate and sally-port and gun. While the cook was
preparing our supper and Ben disguising as a French wood-runner, we
wandered at will, M. Radisson all the while uttering low laughs and
words as of thoughts.
It was--"Caught--neat as a mouse in a trap! Don't let him spill the
canoe when we're running the traverse, Ramsay! May the fiends blast La
Chesnaye if he opens his foolish mouth in Gillam's hearing! Where,
think you, may we best secure him? Are the timbers of your room sound?"
Or else--"Faith, a stout timber would hold those main gates open!
Egad, now, an a man were standing in this doorway, he might jam a
musket in the hinge so the thing would keep open! Those guns in the
bastions though--think you those cannon are not pushed too far through
the windows to be slued round quickly?"
And much more to the same purpose, which told why M. Radisson stooped
to beg supper from rivals.
At sundown all was ready for departure. La Chesnaye and the marquis
had come back with the partridges that were to make pretence for our
quick return to the Prince Rupert. Ben Gillam had disguised as a
bush-runner, and the canoe lay ready to launch. Fools and children
unconsciously do wise things by mistake, as you know; and 'twas such an
unwitting act sprung M. Radisson's plans and let the prize out of the
trap.
"Sink me an you didn't promise the loan of twenty men to hold the
fort!" exclaimed Ben, stepping down.
"Twenty--and more--and welcome," cried Radisson eagerly.
"Then send Ramsay and Monsieur La Chesnaye back," put in Ben quickly.
"I like not the fort without one head while I'm away."
"Willingly," and M. Radisson's eyes glinted triumph.
"Hold a minute!" cried Ben before sitting down. "The river is rough.
Let two of my men take their places in the canoe!"
M. Radisson's breath drew sharp through his teeth. But the trap was
sprung, and he yielded gracefully enough to hide design.
"A curse on the blundering cub!" he muttered, drawing apart to give me
instructions. "Pardieu--you must profit on this, Ramsay! Keep your
eyes open. Spoil a door-lock or two! Plug the cannon if you can! Mix
sand with their powder! Shift the sentinels! Get the devils
insubordinate----"
"M. Radisson!" shouted Gillam.
"Coming!" says Radisson; and he went off with his teeth gritting sand.
[1] See Radisson's own account.