the boats which they were to have. The _St Pierre_, outfitted
for Radisson, was a craft of only fifty tons and boasted a crew of only
twelve men. Groseilliers' vessel, the _St Anne_, which carried his son,
Jean Chouart, was still smaller and had fifteen men. Both crews
consisted of freshwater sailors who tossed with woe and threatened
mutiny when the boats rolled past the tidal bore of Belle Isle Strait
and began threading their way in and out of the 'tickles' and fiords of
the ribbed, desolate, rocky coast of Labrador. Indeed, when the ships
stopped to take on water at a lonely 'hole in the wall' on the Labrador
coast, the mutiny would have flamed into open revolt but for the sail of
a pirate ship that appeared on the horizon. Thereupon Radisson's ships
crowded sail to the wind and sped on up the coast. What pirate ship this
was may be guessed from what happened three weeks later.

Early in September the two vessels reached the Hayes river, which
Radisson had named twelve years before and where he had set up the arms
of the English king. Advancing fifteen miles up-stream, they chose a
winter harbour. Leaving Groseilliers to beach the boats and erect
cabins, Radisson and young Jean Chouart canoed farther up to the
rendezvous of the Cree and Assiniboine Indians. The Indians were
overjoyed to meet their trader friend of long past years. The white
man's coming meant firearms, and firearms ensured invincible might over
all foes. 'Ho, young men, be not afraid. The Sun is favourable to us.
Our enemies shall fear us. This is the man we have wished for since the
days of our fathers,' shouted the chief of the Assiniboines as he danced
and tossed arrows of thanks to the gods.

When the voyageurs glided back down-stream on the glassy current, other
sounds than those of Indian chants greeted them. The Hayes river, as we
have seen, is divided from the Nelson on the north by a swampy stretch of
brushwood. Across the swamp boomed and rolled to their astonished ears the
reverberation of cannon. Was it the pirate ship seen off Labrador? or was
it the coming of the English Company's traders? Radisson's canoe slipped
past the crude fort that Groseilliers had erected and entered the open Bay.
Nothing was visible but the yellow sea, chopped to white caps by the autumn
wind. When he returned to the fort he learned that cannonading had been
heard from farther inland. Evidently the ships had sailed up the Nelson
river. Now, across the marsh b