pply the money, my father to
keep the company from knowing, and me to sail the ship--him, that might
'a' hung in Boston but for my father towing him out o' port--him the
first to turn knave and steal all the pelts!"

"Who?" quietly puts in M. Groseillers, who had been listening with wide
eyes.

But Ben's head rolled drunkenly and he slid down in sodden sleep.

Again the fort door opened with the rush of frost clouds, and in the
midst of the white vapour hesitated three men. The door softly closed,
and Le Borgne stole forward.

"White-man--promise--no--hurt--good Indian?" he asked.

"The white-man is Le Borgne's friend," assured Groseillers, "but who are
these?"

He pointed to two figures, more dead than alive, chittering with cold.

Le Borgne's foxy eye took on a stolid look. "White--men--lost--in the
snow," said he, "white-man from the big white canoe--come
walkee--walkee--one--two--three sleep--watchee good Indian--friend--fort!"

M. Groseillers sprang to his feet muttering of treachery from Governor
Brigdar of the Hudson's Bay Company, and put himself in front of the
intruders so that Ben could not see. But the poor fellows were so frozen
that they could only mumble out something about the Prince Rupert having
foundered, carrying half the crew to the river bottom. Hurrying the two
Englishmen to another part of the fort, M. Groseillers bade me run for
Radisson.

I wish that you could have seen the triumphant glint laughing in Pierre
Radisson's eyes when I told him.

"Fate deals the cards! 'Tis we must play them! This time the jade hath
trumped her partner's ace! Ha, ha, Ramsay! We could 'a' captured both
father and son with a flip o' the finger! Now there's only need to hold
the son! Governor Brigdar must beg passage from us to leave the bay; but
who a deuce are those inlanders that Ben Gillam keeps raving against for
hiding the furs?"

And he flung the mess-room door open so forcibly that Ben Gillam waked
with a jump. At sight of Le Borgne the young New Englander sprang over
the benches with his teeth agleam and murder on his face. But the liquor
had gone to his knees. He keeled head over like a top-heavy brig, and
when we dragged him up Le Borgne had bolted.

All that night Ben swore deliriously that he would do worse to Le
Borgne's master than he had done to the supercargo; but he never by any
chance let slip who Le Borgne's master might be, though M. Radisson,
Chouart Groseillers, young