“Gillam, to-day I set out to capture your fort.”

At the table sat less than thirty men.  Young Gillam gave one scornful glance at the French faces and laughed.

“If you had a hundred men instead of twenty,” he jeered.

“How many have you, Ben?”

“Nine; and they’ll kill you before you reach the palisades.”

Radisson was not talking of killing.

“Gillam,” he returned imperturbably, “pick out nine of my men, and I have your fort within forty-eight hours.”

Gillam chose the company, and Radisson took one of the Hudson Bay captives as a witness.  The thing was done as easily as a piece of farcical comedy.  French hostages had been left among the New Englanders as guarantee of Gillam’s safety in Radisson’s fort.  These hostages had been instructed to drop, as if by chance, blocks of wood across the doors of the guard-room and powder house and barracks.  Even these precautions proved unnecessary.  Two of Radisson’s advance guard, who were met by the lieutenant of the New England fort, reported that “Gillam had remained behind.”  The lieutenant led the two Frenchmen into the fort.  These two kept the gates open for Radisson, who marched in with his band, unopposed.  The keys were delivered and Radisson was in possession.  At midnight the watch-dogs raised an alarm, and the French sallied out to find that a New Englander had run to the Hudson’s Bay Company for aid, and Governor Bridgar’s men were attacking the ships.  All of the assailants fled but four, whom Radisson caught ransacking the ship’s cabin.  Radisson now had more captives than he could guard, so he loaded the Hudson’s Bay Company men with provisions and sent them back to their own starving fort.

Radisson left the New England fort in charge of his Frenchmen and returned to the French quarters.  Strange news was carried to him there.  Bridgar had forgotten all benefits, waited until Radisson’s back was turned, and, with one last desperate cast of the die to retrieve all by capturing the New England fort and ship for the fur company, had marched against young Gillam’s island.  The French threw open the gates for the Hudson’s Bay governor to enter.  Then they turned the key and told Governor Bridgar that he was a prisoner.  Their coup was a complete triumph for Radisson.  Both of his rivals were prisoners, and the French flag flew undisputed over Port Nelson.

Spring brought the Indians down to the bay with the winter’s hunt.  The sight of threescore Englishmen captured by twenty Frenchmen roused the war spirit of the young braves.  They offered Radisson two hundred beaver skins to be allowed to massacre the English.  Radisson thanked the savages for their good will, but declined their offer.  Floods had damaged the water-rotted timbers of the two old hulls in which the explorers voyaged north.  It was agreed to return to Quebec in Ben Gillam’s boat.  A vessel was constructed on one of the