“Sink me an you didn’t promise the loan of twenty men to hold the fort!” exclaimed Ben, stepping down.

“Twenty—­and more—­and welcome,” cried Radisson eagerly.

“Then send Ramsay and Monsieur La Chesnaye back,” put in Ben quickly.  “I like not the fort without one head while I’m away.”

“Willingly,” and M. Radisson’s eyes glinted triumph.

“Hold a minute!” cried Ben before sitting down.  “The river is rough.  Let two of my men take their places in the canoe!”

M. Radisson’s breath drew sharp through his teeth.  But the trap was sprung, and he yielded gracefully enough to hide design.

“A curse on the blundering cub!” he muttered, drawing apart to give me instructions.  “Pardieu—­you must profit on this, Ramsay!  Keep your eyes open.  Spoil a door-lock or two!  Plug the cannon if you can!  Mix sand with their powder!  Shift the sentinels!  Get the devils insubordinate——­”

“M.  Radisson!” shouted Gillam.

“Coming!” says Radisson; and he went off with his teeth gritting sand.

[1] See Radisson’s own account.

CHAPTER XIII

THE WHITE DARKNESS

How much of those instructions we carried out I leave untold.  Certainly we could not have been less grateful as guests than Ben Gillam’s men were inhospitable as hosts.  A more sottish crew of rakes you never saw.  ’Twas gin in the morning and rum in the afternoon and vile potions of mixed poisons half the night, with a cracking of the cook’s head for withholding fresh kegs and a continual scuffle of fighters over cheating at cards.  No marvel the second officer flogged and carved at the knaves like an African slaver.  The first night the whole crew set on us with drawn swords because we refused to gamble the doublets from our backs.  La Chesnaye laid about with his sword and I with my rapier, till the cook rushed to our rescue with a kettle of lye.  After that we escaped to the deck of the ship and locked ourselves inside Ben Gillam’s cabin.  Here we heard the weather-vanes of the fort bastions creaking for three days to the shift of fickle winds.  Shore-ice grew thicker and stretched farther to mid-current.  Mock suns, or sun-dogs, as we called them, oft hung on each side of the sun.  La Chesnaye said these boded ill weather.

Sea-birds caught the first breath of storm and wheeled landward with shrill calls, and once La Chesnaye and I made out through the ship’s glass a vast herd of caribou running to sniff the gale from the crest of an inland hill.

“If Radisson comes not back soon we are storm-bound here for the winter.  As you live, we are,” grumbled the merchant.

But prompt as the ring of a bell to the clapper came Pierre Radisson on the third day, well pleased with what he had done and alert to keep two of us outside the fort in spite of Ben’s urgings to bring the French in for refreshments.