"Is he a spy?" I asked.
"Get ready! Why do you ask questions? The thing is—to do!—do!!—do—!!!"
But Allemand, who had been hauling out the big canoe, came up sullenly.
"Sir," he complained, "the river's running ice the size of a raft, and the wind's a-blowing a gale."
"Man," retorted M. de Radisson with the quiet precision of steel, "if the river were running live fire and the gale blew from the inferno, I—would—go! Stay home and go to bed, Allemand." And he chose one of the common sailors instead.
And when we walked out to the thick edge of the shore-ice and launched the canoe among a whirling drift of ice-pans, we had small hope of ever seeing Fort Bourbon again. The ice had not the thickness of the spring jam, but it was sharp enough to cut our canoe, and we poled our way far oftener than we paddled. Where the currents of the two rivers joined, the wind had whipped the waters to a maelstrom. The night was moonless. It was well we did not see the white turmoil, else M. Radisson had had a mutiny on his hands. When the canoe leaped to the throb of the sucking currents like a cataract to the plunge, La Chesnaye clapped his pole athwart and called out a curse on such rashness. M. Radisson did not hear or did not heed. An ice-pan pitched against La Chesnaye's place, and the merchant must needs thrust out to save himself.
The only light was the white glare of ice. The only guide across that heaving traverse, the unerring instinct of that tall figure at the bow, now plunging forward, now bracing back, now shouting out a "Steady!" that the wind carried to our ears, thrusting his pole to right, to left in lightning strokes, till the canoe suddenly darted up the roaring current of the north river.
Here we could no longer stem both wind and tide. M. Radisson ordered us ashore for rest. Fourteen days were we paddling, portaging, struggling up the north river before we came in range of the Hudson's Bay fort built by Governor Brigdar.
Our proximity was heralded by a low laugh from M. de Radisson. "Look," said he, "their ship aground in mud a mile from the fort. In case of attack, their forces will be divided. It is well," said M. Radisson.
The Prince Rupert lay high on the shallows, fast bound in the freezing sands. Hiding our canoe in the woods, we came within hail and called. There was no answer.