Heralds of Empire

by Agnes C. Laut

  CHAPTER XI

  MORE OF M. RADISSON'S RIVALS

  So Ben Gillam must take M. Radisson aboard the Susan, or Garden, as shewas called when she sailed different colours, the young fellow with awry face, the Frenchman, all gaiety. As the two leaders mounted thecompanion-ladder, hostages came towards the beach to join us. I hadscarce noticed them when one tugged at my sleeve, and I turned to lookfull in the faithful shy face of little Jack Battle.

  "Jack!" I shouted, but he only wrung and wrung and wrung at my hand,emitting little gurgling laughs.

  Then we linked arms and walked along the beach, where others could nothear.

  "Where did you come from?" I demanded.

  "Master Ben fished me up on the Grand Banks. I was with the fleet. Itwas after he met you off the straits; and here I be, Ramsay."

  "After he met us off the straits." I was trying to piece someconnection between Gillam's ship and the inland assailants. "Jack,tell me! How many days have you been here?"

  "Three," says Jack. "Split me fore and aft if we've been a day more!"

  It was four since that night in the bush.

  "You could not build a fort in three days!"

  "'Twas half-built when we came."

  "Who did that? Is Captain Gillam stealing the Company's furs for Ben?"

  "No-o-o," drawled Jack thoughtfully, "it aren't that. It are somethingelse, I can't make out. Master Ben keeps firing and firing and firinghis guns expecting some one to answer."

  "The Indians with the pelts," I suggested.

  "No-o-o," answered Jack. "Split me fore and aft if it's Indians hewants! He could send up river for them. It's some one as came fromhis father's ship outside Boston when Master Ben sailed for the northand Captain Gillam was agoing home to England with Mistress Hortense inhis ship. When no answer comes to our firing, Master Ben takes toclimbing the masthead and yelling like a fog-horn and dropping curseslike hail and swearing he'll shoot him as fails to keep appointment ashe'd shoot a dog, if he has to track him inland a thousand leagues.Split me fore and aft if he don't!"

  "Who shoot what?" I demanded, trying to extract some meaning from thejumbled narrative.

  "That's what I don't know," says Jack.

  I fetched a sigh of despair.

  "What's the matter with your hand? Does it hurt?" he asked quickly.

  Poor Jack! I looked into his faithful blue eyes. There was not ashadow of deception there--only the affection that gives withoutwishing to comprehend. Should I tell him of the adventure? But a loudhalloo from Godefroy notified me that M. de Radisson was on the beachready to launch.

  "Almost waste work to go on fortifying," he was warning Ben.

  "You forget the danger from your own crews," pleaded young Gillam.

  "Pardieu! We can easily arrange that. I promise you never to approachwith more than thirty of a guard." (We were twenty-nine all told.)"But remember, don't hoist a flag, don't fire, don't let your peopleleave the island."

  Then we launched out, and I heard Ben muttering under his breath thathe was cursed if he had ever known such impudence. In mid-current ourleader laid his pole crosswise and laughed long.

  "'Tis a pretty prize. 'Twill fetch the price of a thousandbeaver-skins! Captain Gillam reckoned short when he furnished youngBen to defraud the Company. He would give a thousand pounds for myhead--would he? Pardieu! He shall give five thousand pounds and leavemy head where it is! And egad, if he behaves too badly, he shall payhush-money, or the governor shall know! When we've taken him, lads,who--think you--dare complain?" And he laughed again; but at a bend inthe river he turned suddenly with his eyes snapping--"Who a' deucecould that have been playing pranks in the woods the other night? Markmy words, Stanhope, whoever 'twas will prove the brains and themainspring and the driving-wheel and the rudder of this cub's venture!"

  And he began to dip in quick vigorous strokes like the thoughtsferreting through his brain. We had made bare a dozen miles whenpaddles clapped athwart as if petrified.

  Up the wide river, like a great white bird, came a stately ship. Itwas the Prince Rupert of the Hudson's Bay Company, which claimed soleright to trade in all that north land.

  Young Gillam, with guns mounted, to the rear! A hostile ship, withfighting men and ordnance, to the fore! An unknown enemy inland! Andfor our leader a man on whose head England and New England set a price!

  Do you wonder that our hearts stopped almost as suddenly as thepaddles? But it was not fear that gave pause to M. Radisson.

  "If those ships get together, the game is lost," says he hurriedly."May the devil fly away with us, if we haven't wit to stop that ship!"

  Act jumping with thought, he shot the canoe under cover of the woodedshore. In a twinkling we had such a fire roaring as the natives usefor signals. Between the fire and the river he stationed our Indian,as hunters place a decoy.

  The ruse succeeded.

  Lowering sail, the Prince Rupert cast anchor opposite our fire; butdarkness had gathered, and the English sent no boat ashore till morning.

  Posting us against the woods, M. Radisson went forward alone to meetthe company of soldiers rowing ashore. The man standing amidships,Godefroy said, was Captain Gillam, Ben's father; but the gentleman withgold-laced doublet and ruffled sleeves sitting back in the sheets wasGovernor Brigdar, of the Hudson's Bay Fur Company, a courtier of PrinceRupert's choice.

  The clumsy boat grounded in the shallows, and a soldier got both feetin the water to wade. Instantly M. Radisson roared out such astentorian "Halt!" you would have thought that he had an army at hisback. Indeed, that is what the party thought, for the fellow got hisfeet back in the boat monstrous quick. And there was a vast bandyingof words, each asking other who they were, and bidding each other in novery polite terms to mind their own affairs.

  Of a sudden M. Radisson wheeled to us standing guard.

  "Officers," he shouted, "first brigade!--forward!"

  From the manner of him we might have had an army under cover behindthat bush.

  All at once Governor Brigdar's lace handkerchief was aflutter at theend of a sword, and the representative of King Charles begged leave toland and salute the representative of His Most Christian Majesty, theKing of France.

  And land they did, pompously peaceful, though their swords clanked sooft every man must have had a hand ready at his baldrick, PierreRadisson receiving them with the lofty air of a gracious monarch, theothers bowing and unhatting and bending and crooking their spinessupple as courtiers with a king.

  Presently came the soldiers back to us as hostages, while Radissonstepped into the boat to go aboard the Prince Rupert with the captainand governor. Godefroy called out against such rashness, and PierreRadisson shouted back that threat about the nippers pulling the end offthe fellow's tongue.

  Serving under the French flag, I was not supposed to know English; butwhen one soldier said he had seen "Mr. What-d'y-call-'im before,"pointing at me, I recognised the mate from whom I had hired passage toEngland for M. Picot on Captain Gillam's ship.

  "Like enough," says the other, "'tis a land where no man brings hisback history."

  "See here, fellow," said I, whipping out a crown, "here's for you totell me of the New Amsterdam gentleman who sailed from Boston lastspring!"

  "No New Amsterdam gentleman sailed from Boston," answered both in onebreath.

  "I am not paying for lies," and I returned the crown to my pocket.

  Then Radisson came back, urging Captain Gillam against proceeding upthe river.

  "The Prince Rupert might ground on the shallows," he warned.

  "That will keep them apart till we trap one or both," he told us, as weset off in our canoe. But we had not gone out of range before we wereordered ashore. Picking our way back overland, we spied through thebush for two days, till we saw that Governor Brigdar was takingRadisson's advice, going no farther up-stream, but erecting a fort onthe shore where he had anchored.

  "And now," said Radisson, "we must act."


  While we were spying through the woods, watching the English buildtheir fort, I thought that I saw a figure flitting through the bush tothe rear. I dared not fire. One shot would have betrayed us to theEnglish. But I pointed my gun. The thing came gliding noiselesslynearer. I clicked the gun-butt without firing. The thing paused.Then I called M. Radisson, who said it was Le Borgne, the wall-eyedIndian. Godefroy vowed 'twas a spy from Ben Gillam's fort. The Indianmumbled some superstition of a manitou. To me it seemed like acaribou; for it faded to nothing the way those fleet creatures have ofskimming into distance.