CHAPTER XII

M. RADISSON BEGINS THE GAME

M. Radisson had reckoned well.  His warning to prepare for instant siege set all the young fire-eaters of our Habitation working like beavers to complete the French fort.  The marquis took a hand at squaring timbers shoulder to shoulder with Allemand, the pilot; and La Chesnaye, the merchant prince, forgot to strut while digging up earthworks for a parapet.  The leaven of the New World was working.  Honour was for him only whose brawn won the place; and our young fellows of the birth and the pride were keenest to gird for the task.  On our return from the upper river to the fort, the palisaded walls were finished, guns were mounted on all bastions, the two ships beached under shelter of cannon, sentinels on parade at the main gate, and a long barracks built mid-way across the courtyard.

Here we passed many a merry hour of a long winter night, the green timbers cracking like pistol-shots to the tightening frost-grip, and the hearth logs at each end of the long, low-raftered hall sending up a roar that set the red shadows dancing among ceiling joists.  After ward-room mess, with fare that kings might have envied—­teal and partridge and venison and a steak of beaver’s tail, and moose nose as an entree, with a tidbit of buffalo hump that melted in your mouth like flakes—­the commonalty, as La Chesnaye designated those who sat below the salt, would draw off to the far hearth.  Here the sailors gathered close, spinning yarns, cracking jokes, popping corn, and toasting wits, a-merrier far that your kitchen cuddies of older lands.  At the other hearth sat M. de Radisson, feet spread to the fire, a long pipe between his lips, and an audience of young blades eager for his tales.

“D’ye mind how we got away from the Iroquois, Chouart?” Radisson asks Groseillers, who sits in a chair rough-hewn from a stump on the other side of the fire.

Chouart Groseillers smiles quietly and strokes his black beard.  Jean stretches across a bear-skin on the floor and shouts out, “Tell us!  Tell us!”

“We had been captives six months.  The Iroquois were beginning to let us wander about alone.  Chouart there had sewed his thumb up, where an old squaw had hacked at it with a dull shell.  The padre’s nails, which the Indians tore off in torture, had grown well enough for him to handle a gun.  One day we were allowed out to hunt.  Chouart brought down three deer, the padre two moose, and I a couple of bear.  That night the warriors came back from a raid on Orange with not a thing to eat but one miserable, little, thin, squealing pig.  Pardieu! men, ’twas our chance; and the chance is always hiding round a corner for the man who goes ahead.”

Radisson paused to whiff his pipe, all the lights in his eyes laughing and his mouth expressionless as steel.

“’Tis an insult among Iroquois to leave food at a feast.  There were we with food enough to stuff the tribe torpid as winter toads.  The padre was sent round to the lodges with a tom-tom to beat every soul to the feast.  Chouart and a Dutch prisoner and I cooked like kings’ scullions for four mortal hours!—­”