fort at night.  The delay of the trick nearly cost Radisson his life.  Fall rains had set in, and the river was running a mill-race.  Great floes of ice from the North were tossing on the bay at the mouth of the Nelson River in a maelstrom of tide and wind.  In the dark Radisson did not see how swiftly his canoe had been carried down-stream.  Before he knew it his boat shot out of the river among the tossing ice-floes of the bay.  Surrounded by ice in a wild sea, he could not get back to land.  The spray drove over the canoe till the Frenchman’s clothes were stiff with ice.  For four hours they lay jammed in the ice-drift till a sudden upheaval crushed the canoe to kindling wood and left the men stranded on the ice.  Running from floe to floe, they gained the shore and beat their way for three days through a raging hurricane of sleet and snow toward the French habitation.  They were on the side of the Hayes opposite the French fort.  Four voyageurs crossed for them, and the little company at last gained the shelter of a roof.

Radisson now knew that young Gillam intended to spy upon the French; so he sent scouts to watch the New Englanders’ fort.  The scouts reported that the young captain had sent messengers to obtain additional men from his father; but the New England soldiers, remembering Radisson’s orders to shoot any one approaching, had levelled muskets to fire at the reenforcements.  The rebuffed men had gone back to Governor Bridgar with word of a fort and ship only nine miles up Nelson River.  Bridgar thought this was the French establishment, and old Captain Gillam could not undeceive him.  The Hudson’s Bay Company governor had sent the two men back to spy on what he thought was a French fort.  At once Radisson sent out men to capture Bridgar’s scouts, who were found half dead with cold and hunger.  The captives reported to Radisson that the English ship had been totally wrecked in the ice jam.  Bridgar’s people were starving.  Many traders would have left their rivals to perish.  Radisson supplied them with food for the winter.  They were no longer to be feared; but there was still danger from young Gillam.  He had wished to visit the French fort.  Radisson decided to give him an opportunity.  Ben Gillam was escorted down to Hayes River.  A month passed quietly.  The young captain had learned that the boasted forces of the French consisted of less than thirty men.  His insolence knew no bounds.  He struck a French servant, called Radisson a pirate, and gathering up his belongings prepared to go home.  Radisson quietly barred the young man’s way.

“You pitiful dog!” said the Frenchman, coolly.  “You poor young fool!  Why do you suppose you were brought to this fort?  We brought you here because it suited us!  We keep you here as long as it suits us!  We take you back when it suits us!”

Ben Gillam was dumfounded to find that he had been trapped, when he had all the while thought that he was acting the part of a clever spy.  He broke out in a storm of abuse.  Radisson remanded the foolish young man to a French guard.  At the mess-room table Radisson addressed his prisoner:—­