is assent.

"But about these English prisoners, of whom La Chesnaye sent word from
Isle Percee?" continued the governor.

"The prisoners matter nothing--'tis their ship has value----"

"She must go back," interjects M. de la Barre.

"Back?" exclaims M. Radisson.

"Why didn't you sell her to some Spanish adventurer before you came
here?"

"Spanish adventurer--Your Excellency? I am no butcher!"

"Eh--man!" says the governor, tapping the table with a document he
pulled from his greatcoat pocket and shrugging his shoulders with a
deprecating gesture of the hands, "if her crew feared sharks, they
should have defended her against capture. Now--your prize must go back
to New England and we lose the profit! Here," says he, "are orders
from the king and M. Colbert that nothing be done to offend the
subjects of King Charles of England----"

"Which means that Barillon, the French ambassador----?"

M. de la Barre laid his finger on his lips. "Walls have ears! If one
king be willing to buy and another to sell himself and his country,
loyal subjects have no comment, Radisson." [1]

"Loyal subjects!" sneers M. de Radisson.

"And that reminds me, M. Colbert orders Sieur Radisson to present
himself in Paris and report on the state of the fur-trade to the king!"

"Ramsay," said M. Radisson to me, after Governor la Barre had gone,
"this is some new gamestering!"

"Your court players are too deep for me, sir!"

"Pish!" says he impatiently, "plain as day--we must sail on the frigate
for France, or they imprison us here--in Paris we shall be kept
dangling by promises, hangers-on and do-nothings till the moneys are
all used--then----"

"Then--sir?"

"Then, active men are dangerous men, and dangerous men may lie safe and
quiet in the sponging-house!"

"Do we sail in that case?"

"Egad, yes! Why not? Keep your colours flying and you may sail into
hell, man, and conquer, too! Yes--we sail! Man or devil, don't
swerve, lad! Go your gait! Go your gait! Chouart here will look
after the ships! Paris is near London, and praise be Providence for
that little maid of thine! We shall presently have letters from
her--and," he added, "from Sir John Kirke of the Hudson's Bay Company!"

And it was even as he foretold. I find, on looking over the tattered
pages of a handbook, these notes:

_Oct. 6._--Ben Gillam and Governor Brigdar this day sent back to New
England. There will be great complaints against us in the Engl