“’Twill put speed in the lazy rascals to finish the fort,” he remarked; and the canoe glided out to mid-current again for the far expanse of the bay.

By this we were all so used to M. Radisson’s doings, ’twould not have surprised us when the craft shot out from river-mouth to open sea if he had ordered us to circumnavigate the ocean on a chip.

He did what was nigh as venturesome.

A quick, unwarned swerve of his pole, which bare gave Godefroy time to take the cue, and our prow went scouring across the scud of whipping currents where two rivers and an ocean-tide met.  The seething waves lashed to foam with the long, low moan of the world-devouring serpent which, legend says, is ever an-hungering to devour voyageurs on life’s sea.  And for all the world that reef of combing breakers was not unlike a serpent type of malignant elements bent on man’s destruction!

Then, to the amaze of us all, we had left the lower river.  The canoe was cutting up-stream against a new current; and the moan of the pounding surf receded to the rear.  Clouds blew inland, muffling the moon; and M. Radisson ordered us ashore for the night.  Feet at a smouldering fire too dull for an enemy to see and heads pillowed on logs, we bivouacked with the frosty ground for bed.

“Bad beds make good risers,” was all M. Radisson’s comfort, when Godefroy grumbled out some complaint.

A hard master, you say?  A wise one, say I, for the forces he fought in that desolate land were as adamant.  Only the man dauntless as adamant could conquer.  And you must remember, while the diamond and the charcoal are of the same family, ’tis the diamond has lustre, because it is hard.  Faults, M. Radisson had, which were almost crimes; but look you who judge him—­his faults were not the faults of nearly all other men, the faults which are a crime—­the crime of being weak!

The first thing our eyes lighted on when the sun rose in flaming darts through the gray haze of dawn was a half-built fort on an island in mid-river.  At the water side lay a queer-rigged brigantine, rocking to the swell of the tide.  Here, then, was cause of that firing heard across the marsh on the lower river.

“’Tis the pirate ship we saw on the high sea,” muttered Godefroy, rubbing his eyes.

“She flies no flag!  She has no license to trade!  She’s a poacher!  She will make a prize worth the taking,” added M. Radisson sharply.  Then, as if to justify that intent—­“As we have no license, we must either take or be taken!”

The river mist gradually lifted, and there emerged from the fog a stockaded fort with two bastions facing the river and guns protruding from loopholes.

“Not so easy to take that fort,” growled Godefroy, who was ever a hanger-back.

“All the better,” retorted M. de Radisson.  “Easy taking makes soft men!  ’Twill test your mettle!”