ter's
confidence. On the whole, the first year of office had gone very well.

A stormier season was now to follow. The battle-royal between
Frontenac and Perrot, the governor of Montreal, began in the autumn of
1673 and was waged actively throughout the greater part of 1674.

Enough has been said of Frontenac's tastes to show that he was a
spendthrift; and there can be no doubt that as governor of Canada he
hoped to supplement his salary by private trading. Soon after his
arrival at Quebec in the preceding year he had formed an alliance with
La Salle. The decision to erect a fort at Cataraqui was made for the
double reason that while safeguarding the colony Frontenac and La Salle
could both draw profit from the trade at this point in the interior.

La Salle was not alone in knowing that those who first met the Indians
in the spring secured the best furs at the best bargains. This
information was shared by many, including Francois Perrot. Just above
the island of Montreal is another island, which {46} lies between Lake
St Louis and the Lake of Two Mountains. Perrot, appreciating the
advantage of a strategic position, had fixed there his own
trading-post, and to this day the island bears his name. Now, with
Frontenac as a sleeping partner of La Salle there were all the elements
of trouble, for Perrot and Frontenac were rival traders. Both were
wrathful men and each had a selfish interest to fight for, quite apart
from any dispute as to the jurisdiction of Quebec over Montreal.

Under such circumstances the one thing lacking was a ground of action.
This Frontenac found in the existing edict against the coureurs de
bois--those wild spirits who roamed the woods in the hope of making
great profits through the fur trade, from which by law they were
excluded, and provoked the special disfavour of the missionary by the
scandals of their lives, which gave the Indians a low idea of French
morality. Thus in the eyes of both Church and State the coureur de
bois was a _mauvais sujet_, and the offence of taking to the forest
without a licence became punishable by death or the galleys.

Though Frontenac was not the author of this severe measure, duty
required him to enforce it. Perrot was a friend and {47} defender of
the coureurs de bois, whom he used as employees in the collection of
peltries. Under his regime Montreal formed their headquarters. The
edict gave them no concern, since they knew that between them and
t