Jean, and I kept watch by turns lest the
drunken knave should run amuck of our Frenchmen. I mind once, when M.
Radisson and I were sitting quiet by the bunk where Ben was berthed, the
young rake sat up with a fog-horn of a yell and swore he would slice that
pirate of a Radisson and all his cursed Frenchies into meat for the dogs.

M. Radisson looked through the candle-light and smiled. "If you want to
know your character, Ramsay," says he, "get your enemy talking in his
cups!"

"Shiver my soul, if I'd ever come to his fort but to find out how strong
the liar is!" cries Ben.

"Hm! I thought so," says M. de Radisson, pushing the young fellow back
to his pillow and fastening the fur robes close lest frost steamed
through the ill-chinked logs.

By Christmas Ben Gillam and Jack Battle of the New Englanders' fort and
the two spies of the Hudson's Bay Company had all recovered enough from
their freezing to go about. What with keeping the English and New
Englanders from knowing of each other's presence, we had as twisted a
piece of by-play as you could want. Ben Gillam and Jack we dressed as
bushrangers; the Hudson's Bay spies as French marines. Neither suspected
the others were English, nor ever crossed words while with us. And
whatever enemies say of Pierre Radisson, I would have you remember that
he treated his captives so well that chains would not have dragged them
back to their own masters.

"How can I handle all the English of both forts unless I win some of them
for friends?" he would ask, never laying unction to his soul for the
kindness that he practised.

By Christmas, too, the snow had ceased falling and the frost turned the
land to a silent, white, paleocrystic world. Sap-frozen timbers cracked
with the loud, sharp snapping of pistol-shots--then the white silence!
The river ice splintered to the tightening grip of winter with the
grinding of an earthquake, and again the white silence! Or the heavy
night air, lying thick with frost smoke like a pall over earth, would
reverberate to the deep bayings of the wolf-pack, and over all would
close the white silence!

As if to defy the powers of that deathly realm, M. de Radisson had the
more logs heaped on our hearth and doubled the men's rations. On
Christmas morning he had us all out to fire a salute, Ben Gillam and Jack
and the two Fur Company spies disguised as usual, and the rest of us
muffled to our eyes. Jackets and tompions were torn from the ca