owing both rows
of teeth. "Pooh, pooh, M. Radisson! You are not talking to a
stripling!"

"I had thought I was--and a very fool of a booby, too," answered M.
Radisson coolly.

"Sir!" roared young Gillam with a rumbling of oaths, and he fumbled his
sword.

But his sword had not left the scabbard before M. de Radisson sent it
spinning through mid-air into the sea.

"I must ask your forgiveness for that, boy," said the Frenchman to Ben,
"but a gentleman fights only his equals."

Ben Gillam went white and red by turns, his nose flushing and paling
like the wattle of an angry turkey; and he stammered out that he hoped
M. de Radisson did not take umbrage at the building of a fort.

"We must protect ourselves from the English," pleaded Ben.

"Pardieu, yes," agreed M. de Radisson, proffering his own sword with a
gesture in place of the one that had gone into the sea, "and I had come
to offer you twenty men _to hold_ the fort!"

Ben glanced questioningly to his second officer.

"Bid that fellow draw off!" ordered M. Radisson.

Dazed like a man struck between the eyes, Ben did as he was commanded.

"I told you that I came in friendship," began Radisson.

Gillam waited.

"Have you lost a man, Ben?"

"No," boldly lied Gillam.

"Has one run away from the island against orders?"

"No, devil take me, if I've lost a hand but the supercargo that I
killed."

"I had thought that was yours," said Radisson, with contempt for the
ruffian's boast; and he handed out the paper taken from Jack.

Ben staggered back with a great oath, vowing he would have the scalp of
the traitor who lost that letter. Both stood silent, each
contemplating the other. Then M. Radisson spoke.

"Ben," said he, never taking his glance from the young fellow's face,
"what will you give me if I guide you to your father this afternoon? I
have just come from Captain Gillam. He and his crew are ill of the
scurvy. Dress as a coureur and I pass you for a Frenchman."

"My father!" cried Ben with his jaws agape and his wits at sea.

"Pardieu--yes, I said your father!"

"What do you want in return?" stammered Ben.

Radisson uttered a laugh that had the sound of sword-play.

"Egad, 'tis a hot supper I'd like better than anything else just now!
If you feed us well and disguise yourself as a coureur, I'll take you
at sundown!"

And in spite of his second officer's signals, Ben Gillam hailed us
forthwith to the fort, where M. Radisson's keen ey