carried his fur to a
competitor, as he often did in whole flotillas, the white man would have
his revenge some season when food was scarce; or, if his physical
prowess permitted, he would take his revenge on the spot by
administering a sound thrashing to the transgressor. It is on record
that one trader, in the early days of Moose Factory, broke an oar while
chastising an Indian who had failed in his duty.

Many of the lonely bachelors at the forts contracted marriage with
native women. These marriages were entered on the books of the Company,
and were considered as valid as if bound by clergy. Sometimes they led
to unhappy results. When men returned from the service, the Indian wife,
transplanted to England, lived in wretched loneliness; and the
children--'les petits,' as they are entered in the books--were still
less at home amid English civilization. Gradually it became customary to
leave the Indian women in their native land and to support them with a
pension deducted from the wages of the retired husband and father. This
pension was assured by the Company's system of holding back one-third of
its servants' wages for a retiring fund. If a servant had left any
'petits' behind him, a sum of money was withheld from his wages to
provide a pension for them, and a record of it was kept on the books.
This rule applied even to men who were distinguished in the service.

* * * * *

In June 1670, one month after the charter was granted, three ships--the
_Wavero_, the _Shaftesbury Pink_, and the _Prince Rupert_--conveying
forty men and a cargo of supplies, sailed for Hudson Bay. Gillam
commanded the _Prince Rupert_, Radisson went as general superintendent
of trade, and Charles Bayly as governor of the fort at the Rupert river.
Gorst the secretary, Romulus the surgeon, and Groseilliers accompanied
the expedition. The ships duly arrived at Fort Charles, and, while Bayly
and his men prepared the fort for residence and Groseilliers plied trade
with the Indians, Radisson cruised the west coast of the Bay on the
_Wavero_. He made observations at Moose and Albany rivers, and passed
north to Nelson harbour, where Button had wintered half a century
before. Here, on the projection of land between two great rivers--the
future site of York Factory--Radisson erected the arms of the English
king. The southern river he named Hayes, after Sir James Hayes, Prince
Rupert's secretary. The mouth of this river was