and airy cataracts of Richmond Gulf, past silence like the realms
of death, on down where Hudson Bay rounds into James Bay and the shallows
plainly show this is no way to a western sea, but a blind inlet,
bowlder-strewn and muddy as swamps.

{31}

[Illustration: AT EASTERN ENTRANCE TO HUDSON STRAITS]

When the ship runs aground and all hands must out to waist in ice water
to pull her ashore as the tide comes in, Juett's rage bursts all bounds.
As they toil, snow begins to fall. They are winter bound and storm bound
in an unknown land. Half the crew are in open mutiny; the other half
build winter quarters and range the woods of James Bay for game. Of game
there is plenty, but the rebels refuse to hunt. A worthless lad named
Green, whom Hudson had picked off the streets of London, turns traitor
and talebearer, fomenting open quarrels till the commander threatens he
will hang to the yardarm the first man guilty of disobedience. So passes
the sullen winter. Provisions are short when the ship weighs anchor for
England in June of 1611. With tears in his eyes, Hudson hands out the
last rations. Ice blocks the way. Delay means starvation. If the crew
were only half as large, Henry Green whispers to the mutineers, there
would be food enough for passage home. The ice floes clear, the sails
swing rattling to the breeze, but as Hudson steps on deck, the mutineers
leap upon him like wolves. He is bound and thrown into the rowboat.
With him are thrust his son and {32} eight others of the crew. The rope
is cut, the rowboat jerks back adrift, and Hudson's vessel, manned by
mutineers, drives before the wind. A few miles out, the mutineers lower
sails to rummage for food. The little boat with the castaways is seen
coming in pursuit. Guilt-haunted, the crew out with all sails and flee
as from avenging ghosts. So passes Henry Hudson from the ken of all men,
though Indian legend on the shores of Hudson Bay to this day maintains
that the castaways landed north of Rupert and lived among the savages.

[Illustration: HUDSON COAT OF ARMS]

Not less disastrous were English efforts than French to colonize the New
World. Up to 1610 Canada's story is, in the main, a record of blind
heroism, dogged courage, death that refused to acknowledge defeat.

Four hundred French vessels now yearly come to reap the harvest of the
sea; in and out among the fantastic rocks of Gaspe, pierced and pillared
and scooped into caves by the wave