bullets'; and the
Indians told Radisson stories of 'canoes with sails' having come to the
Bay. Had Indians, supplied with firearms overland from Quebec traders,
assailed that house where nine white men, standing at bay between
starvation and their enemies, took their last stand? The third tradition
is of a later day. A few years ago a resident of Fort Frances, who had
spent the summer at the foot of James Bay, and who understood the Indian
language, wrote that the Indians had told him legends of white men who
had come to the Bay long long ago, before ever 'the Big Company came,'
and who had been cast away by their fellows, and who came ashore and
lived among the Indians and took Indian wives and left red-haired
descendants. It is probable that fur traders had told the Indians the
story of Hudson; and this would explain the origin of this tradition. On
the other hand, in a race utterly isolated from the outside world,
among whom neither printing nor telegraph ever existed, traditions
handed down from father to son acquire peculiar value; and in them we
can often find a germ of truth. The legends are given for what they are
worth.

There is no need to relate the fate of the mutineers. The fate of
mutineers is the same the world over. They quarrelled among themselves.
They lost themselves among the icefloes. When they found their way back
through the straits all provisions were exhausted. While they were
prisoners in the icefloes, scurvy assailed the crew. Landing to gather
sorrel grass as an antidote to scurvy, they were attacked by Eskimos.
Only four men were left to man the ship home, and they were reduced to a
diet of sea moss and offal before reaching Ireland. Greene perished
miserably among the Indians, and his body was thrown into the sea. Old
Juet died of starvation in sight of Ireland, raving impotent curses. But
however dire Nemesis may be, or however deep may be repentance, neither
undoes the wrong; and Hudson had gone to his unknown grave, sent thither
by imbeciles, who would not work that they might eat, nor strive that
they might win, but sat crouching, as their prototypes sit, ready to
spring at the throat of Endeavour.

Thomas Button, afterwards knighted for his effort, came out the very
next year at the expense of the merchant adventurers--Walstenholme,
Smith, and Digges--to search for Hudson. He wintered (1612-13) at Port
Nelson, which he explored and named after his mate, who died there of
scurvy; but