er where one is master,
and welcome to you, Captain Gillam!"

And they embraced each other like spider and fly, each with a free hand
to his sword-hilt, and a questioning look on the other's face.

Says M. Radisson: "I've seen that ship before!"

Ben laughs awkwardly. "We captured her from a Dutchman," he begins.

"Oh!" says Sieur Radisson. "I meant outside the straits after the storm!"

Gillam's eyes widen. "Were those your ships?" he asks. Then both men
laugh.

"Not much to boast in the way of a fleet," taunts Ben.

"Those are the two smallest we have," quickly explains Radisson.

Gillam's face went blank, and M. Radisson's eyes closed to the watchful
slit of a cat mouse-hunting.

"Come! Come!" exclaims Ben, with a sudden flare of friendliness, "I am
no baby-eater! Put a peg in that! Shiver my soul if this is a way to
welcome friends! Come aboard all of you and test the Canary we got in
the hold of a fine Spanish galleon last week! Such a top-heavy ship,
with sails like a tinker's tatters, you never saw! And her hold running
over with Canary and Madeira--oh! Come aboard! Come aboard!" he urged.

It was Pierre Radisson's turn to blink.

"And drink to the success of the beaver trade," importunes Ben.

'Twas as pretty a piece of play as you could see: Ben, scheming to get
the Frenchman captive; M. Radisson, with the lightnings under his brows
and that dare-devil rashness of his blood tempting him to spy out the
lad's strength.

"Ben was the body of the venture! Where was the brain? It was that took
me aboard his ship," M. Radisson afterward confessed to us.

"Come! Come!" pressed Gillam. "I know young Stanhope there"--his mighty
air brought the laugh to my face--"young Stanhope there has a taste for
fine Canary----"

"But, lad," protested Radisson, with a condescension that was vinegar to
Ben's vanity, "we cannot be debtors altogether. Let two of your men stay
here and whiff pipes with my fellows, while I go aboard!"

Ben's teeth ground out an assent that sounded precious like an oath; for
he knew that he was being asked for hostages of safe-conduct while M.
Radisson spied out the ship. He signalled, as we thought, for two
hostages to come down from the fort; but scarce had he dropped his hand
when fort and ship let out such a roar of cannonading as would have
lifted the hair from any other head than Pierre Radisson's.

Godefroy cut a caper. The Indian's eyes bulged with terror, and