discovered Coppermine River, the Arctic Ocean, and the Athabasca
country,--a region in all as large as half European Russia.

For his achievements Hearne received prompt promotion. Within a year
of his return to the fort, Governor Norton, the Indian bully, fell
deadly ill. In the agony of death throes, he called for his wives.
The great keys to the apartments of the women were taken from his
pillow, and the wives were brought in. Norton lay convulsed with pain.
One of the younger women began to sob. An officer of the garrison took
her hand to comfort her grief. Norton's rolling eyes caught sight of
the innocent conference between the officer and the young wife. With a
roar the dying bully hurled himself up in bed:--

"I'll burn you alive! I'll burn you alive," he shrieked. With oaths
on his lips he fell back dead.

[Illustration: Fort Prince of Wales (Churchill), from Hearne's Account,
1799 Edition.]

Samuel Hearne became governor of the fort. For ten years nothing
disturbed the calm of his rule. Marie, Norton's daughter, still lived
in the shelter of the fort; the wives found consolation in other
husbands; and Matonabbee continued the ambassador of the company to
strange tribes. One afternoon of August, 1782, the sleepy calm of the
fort was upset by the sentry dashing in breathlessly with news that
three great vessels of war with full-blown sails and carrying many guns
were ploughing straight for Prince of Wales. At sundown the ships
swung at anchor six miles from the fort. From their masts fluttered a
foreign flag--the French ensign. Gig boat and pinnace began sounding
the harbor. Hearne had less than forty men to defend the fort. In the
morning four hundred French troopers lined up on Churchill River, and
the admiral, La Perouse, sent a messenger with demand of surrender.
Hearne did not feel justified in exposing his men to the attack of
three warships carrying from seventy to a hundred guns apiece, and to
assault by land of four hundred troopers. He surrendered without a
blow.

[Illustration: Beaver Coin of Hudson's Bay Company, melted from Old Tea
Chests, one Coin representing one Beaver.]

The furs were quickly transferred to the French ships, and the soldiers
were turned loose to loot the fort. The Indians fled, among them Moses
Norton's gentle daughter, now in her twenty-second year. She could not
revert to the loathsome habits of savage life; she dared not go to the
fort filled with la