M. Radisson never allowed an enemy’s taunt to hasten speech or act.  He looked at Ben with a measuring glance which sized that fellow very small indeed.

“Then I must decline your wager, Ben,” says he.  “In the first place, Jack Battle is mine already.  In the second, you would lose ten times over.  In the third, you have few enough men already.  And in the fourth, your head isn’t worth pawn for a wager; though I may take you, body and boots, all the same,” adds he.

With that he goes off, leaving Ben blowing curses into the fire like a bellows.  The young rake bawled out for more gin, and with head sunk on his chest began muttering to himself.

“That black-eyed, false-hearted, slippery French eel!” he mumbles, rapping out an oath.  “Now the devil fly off with me, an I don’t slit him like a Dutch herring for a traitor and a knave and a thief and a cheat!  By Judas, if he doesn’t turn up with the furs, I’ll do to him as I did to the supercargo last week, and bury him deep in the bastion!  Very fine, him that was to get the furs hiding inland!  Him, that didn’t add a cent to what Kirke and Stocking paid; they to supply the money, my father to keep the company from knowing, and me to sail the ship—­him, that might ‘a’ hung in Boston but for my father towing him out o’ port—­him the first to turn knave and steal all the pelts!”

“Who?” quietly puts in M. Groseillers, who had been listening with wide eyes.

But Ben’s head rolled drunkenly and he slid down in sodden sleep.

Again the fort door opened with the rush of frost clouds, and in the midst of the white vapour hesitated three men.  The door softly closed, and Le Borgne stole forward.

“White-man—­promise—­no—­hurt—­good Indian?” he asked.

“The white-man is Le Borgne’s friend,” assured Groseillers, “but who are these?”

He pointed to two figures, more dead than alive, chittering with cold.

Le Borgne’s foxy eye took on a stolid look.  “White—­men—­lost—­in the snow,” said he, “white-man from the big white canoe—­come walkee—­walkee—­one—­two—­three sleep—­watchee good Indian—­friend—­fort!”

M. Groseillers sprang to his feet muttering of treachery from Governor Brigdar of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and put himself in front of the intruders so that Ben could not see.  But the poor fellows were so frozen that they could only mumble out something about the Prince Rupert having foundered, carrying half the crew to the river bottom.  Hurrying the two Englishmen to another part of the fort, M. Groseillers bade me run for Radisson.

I wish that you could have seen the triumphant glint laughing in Pierre Radisson’s eyes when I told him.

“Fate deals the cards!  ’Tis we must play them!  This time the jade hath trumped her partner’s ace!  Ha, ha, Ramsay!  We could ‘a’ captured both father and son with a flip o’ the finger!  Now there’s only need to hold the son!  Governor Brigdar must beg passage from us to leave the bay; but who a deuce are those inlanders that Ben Gillam keeps raving against for hiding the furs?”