rovisions were nearly gone and all that saved their lives was
skill in hunting whereby they secured several hundred white partridges,
or ptarmigan. Discontent and mutiny were breaking out among the members
of the crew, and the ringleader against Hudson was young Henry Greene
whom he had befriended and fed at his own table. A house was built for
winter quarters, but it was badly constructed and the biting Arctic
blast swept through it, chilling to the bone the bodies that were
weakened with hunger. In the spring, when the mariners were able once
again to resume the voyage, they were at death's door from starvation.

What little food was left was distributed by Hudson, and, we are told,
he wept as he doled it out. Disappointed in his hopes of a successful
voyage, weakened with hunger and with a crew in almost open mutiny, it
is not to be wondered at if he spoke harshly at times to his men and
added to the grudge they harbored against him. The most assiduous of
all in their efforts to do him injury was Henry Greene, his former
beneficiary.

A plot was conceived to put Hudson and all the sick members of the crew
in the shallop or small boat that the _Discoverer_ carried and turn
them adrift, and all the details of this were worked out by Greene and
some other leading spirits among the mutineers. Hudson was seized and
bound; the sick were told to get up from their bunks and take their
places in the shallop. Even the boy, John Hudson, was placed there
also,--and the carpenter, who preferred to face death with his master
rather than remain with the mutineers, was put aboard as well. Then the
painter was cut, and without food, clothing or provisions, Hudson and
his companions floated away amid the ice fields. They were never seen
again.

The mutineers sailed homeward and secured some provisions at islands on
the way where they found fish and wild fowl. It is a satisfaction to
know that they were attacked by the natives and that Greene and several
others were killed. The survivors, after a terrible voyage, reached
Ireland and then made their way to England. Although they were
questioned closely regarding Hudson's fate, little or no punishment was
visited on them and some of them even took part in later expeditions.
And so perished by base treachery one of the bravest and most brilliant
sailors that the world has ever seen, for Hudson died either in the
melancholy reaches of Hudson Bay or on some bleak shore where he was
cast